NO HIKE FOR TEXAS PROVIDER:

Texas Insurance Commissioner José Montemayor rejected rate hikes requested by the Texas Medical Liability Insurance Underwriting Associ-ation, also known as the Joint Underwriting Association (JUA). According to the Texas Department of Insurance, the JUA had filed for increases of 35.2 percent for physicians, surgeons, and other non-institutional health care providers, and 67.9 percent for hospitals and other institutional health care providers, to take effect Dec. 1, 2003. In the order disallowing the rate hikes, Montemayor noted that the proposed rates did not adequately consider the effects of House Bill 4 (Proposition 12) on the JUA’s future anticipated losses. He also stated that the proposed rates were unfairly discriminatory because they lacked actuarial support for territorial relativities. Montemayor said TDI will aggressively scrutinize all rate requests and that the department will take the same approach with medical malpractice rates as it took with homeowners insurance this past year. In September 2003, TDI ordered 29 home insurers to reduce their rates by a combined $510 million. The agency is examining the rates of all regulated medical malpractice carriers in Texas to determine if the effects of Proposition 12 have been accounted for in their premiums charged.