Sieron & Associates, Inc. v. Department of Insurance

857 N.E.2d 805, 368 Ill. App. 3d 181
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedSeptember 28, 2006
Docket5-04-0571
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 857 N.E.2d 805 (Sieron & Associates, Inc. v. Department of Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sieron & Associates, Inc. v. Department of Insurance, 857 N.E.2d 805, 368 Ill. App. 3d 181 (Ill. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinions

JUSTICE McGLYNN

delivered the opinion of the court:

I. INTRODUCTION

In May of 2002, the Illinois FAIR Plan Association Governing Committee voted not to renew all insurance policies that insured properties held by one of the largest property owners in Metro East Illinois — the Sierons. Members of the Sieron family and companies closely held by them (the Sierons) own or control some 650 to 700 single-family houses, mostly in the impoverished area of East St. Louis. Because the properties held by the group had an unusually high loss ratio, the FAIR Plan Association decided not to renew any of the Sierons’ policies. The Sierons appealed the nonrenewals to the Director of Insurance, who, after an administrative hearing, entered an order affirming the FAIR Plan Association’s nonrenewal of the Sieron policies. The Sierons then filed an administrative review action in circuit court, and on August 16, 2004, the trial court affirmed the order. The Sierons now appeal, arguing that the FAIR Plan Association’s decision not to renew their insurance policies violates the Illinois FAIR Plan (see 215 ILCS 5/522 et seq. (West 2004)), is against the manifest weight of the evidence, is constitutionally invalid, and is contrary to law.

II. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INNER CITY INSURANCE CRISIS

In the mid-1960s, the manner in which insurance rates were set, as well as the prevailing business model for property insurers, led the insurance industry to conclude that underwriting properties in the urban core was uneconomical at the rate classifications approved by state insurance rating bureaus. The Central City Insurance Crisis: Experience Under the Urban Property Protection and Reinsurance Act of 1968, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 665, 666 (1971). This fear was heightened by projections of the potential for massive losses in the event of a catastrophic civil disturbance in urban areas. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666. The system of rate regulation common to most states required insurers to submit fixed rate schedules for the various classes of property insurance. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666. Since all properties within a given classification were charged the same rate regardless of risk, the insurance companies were willing to insure only those properties that would be profitable at the given rate. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666 n.6, citing President’s National Advisory Panel on Insurance in Riot-Affected Areas, Meeting the Insurance Crisis of Our Cities 1, 33 (1968) (The Hughes Report). When the risks in a specific area or neighborhood appeared to be riskier and therefore demanded rates greater than the applicable rate schedule allowed, insurers withdrew from the area. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666.

Compounding the problem was that if a major insurer actively sought to write policies in the urban core, the increased claim payments in those areas required the insurer to increase overall premium rates. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666. This rise in premium rates would eventually price the insurer out of the lower-risk markets and force it to raise its rates even more, due to the higher loss ratio. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666. The natural progression of this dynamic was that the insurance industry gradually divided itself into two categories: standard companies competing for better risks, which excluded most urban, minority neighborhoods, and second-line companies of questionable solvency, which offered insurance at an increased rate to high-risk properties that major companies refused to insure. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 666. This additional cost was either prohibitive to the property owners or forced businesses to pass the costs on to their local customers. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 668. This resulted in tightly grouped buildings with segregated, dissatisfied residents who were mostly minorities. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 667 n.10, citing The Hughes Report at 6.

Standard property insurers developed several tactics to restrict the number of policies their agents could or would write in these high-risk central-city areas. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 667. One of the most effective methods was “redlining” — a nefarious ploy in which the insurer designated specific areas as unqualified for any coverage or for only certain limited coverage. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 667. Typically, entire neighborhoods were “redlined,” without regard to the intrinsic characteristics of individual properties within the area. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 667. There were other tactics and strategies to be sure, all of which had the effect of either defeating coverage or setting very high deductibles or extremely low coverage-to-value ratios. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 667.

The unavailability of reasonably priced property insurance had a twofold effect. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 668. First, businesses and shop owners were forced to pass their increased costs on to their customers. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 668. This led to “ ‘resentment and tensions between merchants and neighborhood residents, who believe[d] they [were] being victimized by profiteering and unethical business practices.’ ” 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 668, quoting Hearings on 1970 Housing and Urban Development Litigation Before the Subcomm. on Housing of the H. Comm, on Banking and Currency, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, at 382 (1970) (statement by Thomas J. D’Alesandro III, Mayor, Baltimore, Md.). The second and more profound effect of the unavailability of reasonably priced property insurance was to accelerate urban decay and abandonment. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 668. Since “redlining” was becoming commonplace in the mid-1960s and financing for new developments and the rehabilitation of older structures were simply impossible without adequate insurance coverage, our nation discovered that unless all urban property owners were insured against loss, attempts at urban rehabilitation and revitalization were doomed to fail. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 665, 668.

III. THE CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSE AND CREATION OF THE FAIR PLAN

Because private insurers were unlikely to insure those areas, Congress enacted the Urban Property Protection and Reinsurance Act of 1968 (Pub. L. No. 90 — 448, §1101, 82 Stat. 555) to assist states and the insurance industry in making essential property insurance more readily available to urban areas. 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 669.

Soon after, Illinois enacted its own urban property insurance statute within the Illinois Insurance Code, and the purpose of this statute is stated as follows:

“This article is to make basic property insurance increasingly available to the citizens of this State, and to deter the insurance industry from geographically redlining urban areas of this State by requiring the restructuring of the Industry Placement Facility and administering the FAIR Plan (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) to deliver residential property insurance to all citizens of this State on a reasonable access and marketing basis by offering homeowners insurance, by requiring immediate binding of eligible risks, by making use of premium installment payment plans, and by further establishing reasonable service standards in its plan of operation subject to the approval and review of the Director; and[ ] to establish a central operation facility for the equitable distribution of losses and expenses in the writing of the basic property insurance and homeowners insurance in this State.”

Related

SI Boo, LLC v. Comm'r
2015 T.C. Memo. 19 (U.S. Tax Court, 2015)
Odie v. Department of Employment Security
881 N.E.2d 358 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2007)
Sieron & Associates, Inc. v. Department of Insurance
857 N.E.2d 805 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2006)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
857 N.E.2d 805, 368 Ill. App. 3d 181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sieron-associates-inc-v-department-of-insurance-illappct-2006.