I'm not fan of the insurance business either, but it is a business and they have to make certain decisions. It is a heavily-regulated industry, perhaps the most heavily-regulated industry we have except for the nuclear industry and the banking industry.
Insurance companies have to maintain what is called a claim reserve, an amount of liquidity that covers what might reasonably expected they would have to provide to cover policyholder casualty losses. In the event of an unexpected, sudden drawdown of this reserve, they must reconstitute it quickly and right the balance between possible claims and the amount of reserve. That means either raising premium rates or reducing exposure, or both. Allstate is probably focusing on limiting future liabilities to protect current policyholders, and will likely be raising rates on existing policies to replenish their reserves. I know my homeowners rates have gone up, and I am nowhere near a coastline, and haven't had any casualty losses for a good number of years now. But because of the spread-the-risk basis of the insurance business, we all pay a larger amount to keep the pie whole.
That said, I am wondering if cutting off new applicants completely was really the only option? Maybe offering new policies at a higher rate would have had the same effect as limiting the future claims liability. The secondary effect would be writing fewer [policies, which is what they got anyway when they nixed the new applicants.
Good posting.