Mercury Insurance 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

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Number of Employees
6,000
4,000
2,000
3,000
1,000
0
09 10 11 12 13
5,000
Number of Agents
9,000
8,000
5,000
3,000
4,000
2,000
0
09 10 11 12 13
6,000
7,000
1,000
One of our top priorities in the past several years
has been to improve our results outside of California.
For the full year, excluding catastrophe losses, our
operations outside of California posted a combined
ratio under 100%. Although our margins outside of
California have improved dramatically over the past
few years, premiums written outside of California have
declined as rate increases aected our retention levels
and impacted our ability to generate new business.
To improve our cost structure outside of California,
last year we consolidated our claims and underwriting
operations located outside of California into hub
locations in Florida, New Jersey and Texas. Additional
expense reduction measures were taken or are
planned, including a new commission structure that
compensates our agents based on the individual
relationship the agent has with the Company. These
which represents 22% of our total California private
passenger automobile business. In January 2014 we
implemented a 6.0% rate increase on our California
preferred private passenger automobile business,
which represents 78% of our California private
passenger automobile business. In addition, we
implemented an 8.26% rate increase on our California
homeowners business in January 2014 and recently
obtained approvals for a 6.7% rate increase on
California business automobile policies and an 11% rate
increase on California mechanical breakdown policies.
We currently have one rate filing pending approval
with the Department of Insurance for an additional
rate increase of 6.9% on our California non-standard
private passenger automobile business that was filed
in December 2013. We expect our results in California
to improve in 2014 as these rate increases begin to
earn in.
2013 ANNUAL REPORT 5