The Benefits of Competition:
The South Carolina Experience

South Carolina’s shift from regulatory controls to a healthy competitive system with strong consumer safeguards provided immediate improvement in the affordability and availability of insurance for South Carolina consumers. Texas should look to South Carolina for components of what to do here to solve our insurance problems.

"Illinois and South Carolina are two good examples of states that use a common sense approach to regulation. In both cases, costs have gone down, more companies are writing insurance giving consumers more choices, and public officials are hearing fewer complaints...South Carolina's approach to auto insurance was much like New Jersey until a few years ago. In 1997, legislation was passed to deregulate the market. The results have already been dramatic for consumers, the number of insurers doing business in the state doubled over a one-year period, and good drivers generally have seen rate decreases of 20 percent or more."
- "Collision Course: What Path for Auto Insurance in New Jersey?"
The Record, Bergen, NJ, July 1, 2001

"Four years ago, South Carolina lawmakers, weary of wrestling with a system of automobile insurance regulation no one liked, decided to scrap it and let the market set the rates. So far, it seems to have worked well, resulting in smaller insurance bills for many drivers...and more than 100 new companies writing auto-insurance policies in the state."
- "Many S.C. Drivers Seeing Smaller Bills, Choices Are Greater, Too,"
The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, July 8, 2001

"South Carolina’s current auto insurance system, where competition — rather than the state — sets the rates, has meant that the state has dropped from 26th to 38th in the nation for average insurance costs...Meanwhile, the number of companies selling auto insurance in South Carolina has doubled from 74 to 156."
- "Most to Pay Less for Auto Insurance," The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, February 17, 2002

"Insurance companies are again entering South Carolina...Between March 1999, when the new rating law took effect, and August 2000, 105 auto insurers had entered the market...competitive pricing that can attract insurers provides a ready-made mechanism for the market to correct itself — if only it is allowed to work."
- Modernizing Insurance Rate Regulation, Philip R. O'Connor, Ph.D., Eugene Esposito, J.D., 2001

"In free-market states such as Illinois and South Carolina, there are numerous auto insurance companies providing consumers with real choices at competitive prices without subsidizing risky drivers with bad records."
- Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY), Chairwoman of Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services

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