Catastrophic Weather, Inflation and Rates

I customarily begin any message to Armed Forces Insurance members with a thank-you, and this is no exception. Thank you for being a part of AFI. We appreciate you, and we will always consider it an honor to serve our military community. Our duty to our members is even more important now, as we face unprecedented weather events and volatile economic conditions. Rest assured, we’ll keep this duty front and center as we work to protect the interests of all our members in these challenging times.

Catastrophic weather and resulting losses from claims is a major issue that’s affecting almost everyone — every insurance carrier, every policyholder, everyone. In fact, a number of high-profile carriers have exited particularly challenging state marketplaces. Other carriers, hit with claims far exceeding their reserves, have dissolved.

Hail losses continue to be at historically high levels for AFI and the whole industry. Both July and August continued to produce extremely heavy losses at a time of the year when storms would typically die down. We’ve processed or are processing claims from multiple major storms, and we still have another month of hurricane season before us. Further complicating our challenges, inflation has made it more expensive to repair and rebuild property damaged in these widespread weather events.

Taken together, these conditions dictate that we make some tough decisions to protect the interests of our membership. We are charged with ensuring that AFI continues to serve our military community for another 135 years. With this in mind, there has been no getting around one hard truth: We have to raise rates to ensure we can meet our obligations to all AFI members. This is a tough call, but we have to make sure we have you covered in these uncertain times, so we have filed for rate increases in several jurisdictions.

As always, we’re here to answer any questions you have if your rates are affected. It’s certain that policyholders with all other carriers are facing rate increases and have questions for their insurance companies. Many of them will have a hard time connecting with an actual person to talk about it. You won’t. We’re here for you, just like we’ve been here for our service members, veterans and their families for over 135 years.

Now, as ever, Our Mission is You.^®

Sincerely,

Lt Gen Stanley E. "Sid" Clarke III
U.S. Air Force (Ret.)
Chairman, Armed Forces Insurance