ALL SIGNS POINT DOWN:

Massachusetts auto rates will be going down in 2006, although by how much is not yet known. Insurance Commissioner Julianne Bowler received her third recommendation, this one calling for a 5.4 percent reduction in rates, from the State Rating Bureau, the consumer arm of the Division of Insurance. After months of public hearings, she will decide among that 5.4 percent rate cut recommendation, a filing for a smaller 0.1 percent reduction submitted by the industry itself, and a gigantic 18 percent rate cut proposal urged by Attorney General Tom Riley.

In related news, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance approved a modification in the way high risk private passenger auto business written by exclusive representative producers is distributed among the state’s insurance companies. Commissioner Julianne Bowler has signed off on a revised Rule 13 submitted by the board of Commonwealth Auto Reinsurers. However, in addition to green-lighting the ERP redistribution, Bowler is requiring that the shifting of ERP business take into consideration the quality or loss ratios as well as the quantity of risks for which each insurer is responsible. Bowler ordered CAR to recalculate the loss ratios of all ERPs before reassigning the business to carriers.