Rate Filing

A rate filing is how insurance pricing becomes official. Before a carrier can charge a rate (or a bureau can publish an advisory loss cost), it files the proposed numbers and supporting actuarial justification with each state's Department of Insurance. Most states use SERFF (the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing), and the non-confidential portions of filings are public record.

Filings come in a few flavors: base-rate / loss-cost filings (the per-class numbers), rate-change filings (an overall +/- percentage, e.g. 'a 6.9% workers'-comp decrease'), and form filings (policy language). A filing carries a tracking number (SERFF number), an effective date, and a status (pending, approved, withdrawn, superseded).

Because filings are regulator-held primary sources, they are the backbone of GBC's rate data — every figure in our state rate hubs and rate studies traces to a real filing. See the methodology page for how we capture and cite them.