South Carolina Insurance Rate Filings — Top Accelerator Among Tracked States (Q1 2026)

Updated 2026-05-23 Source: SC Department of Insurance (doi.sc.gov) + NAIC quarterly aggregation Methodology

Last updated May 2026 · Rate Authority.

South Carolina Insurance Rate Filings — Top Accelerator Among Tracked States (Q1 2026)

South Carolina carriers filed an average 7.8% rate change across 15 filings in Q1 2026. That’s up from 6.2% across 12 filings in Q4 2025, a 1.6 percentage-point quarter-over-quarter acceleration — the steepest move among the four states Rate Authority tracks in the rate-environment dashboard. The other three: Florida decelerated 0.6 points to 11.5%, Georgia accelerated a milder 0.4 points to 9.3%, Maine accelerated 1.3 points to 6.4%.

The acceleration matters because South Carolina is one of nine states currently designated for full Rate Authority economic tracking (alongside ME, IL, KS, MD, GA, IN, OK, VT). When a tracked state moves from middle-of-pack into top-accelerator position, the downstream carrier behavior shifts faster than the headline rate change suggests.

What 7.8% on 15 filings means

The headline averages a basket of 15 separate carrier filings approved or in effect in South Carolina during Q1 2026. Auto and home filings combined; not weighted by premium volume. The 1.6-point acceleration says carriers in aggregate filed for larger increases this quarter than last, and the filing count rose 25% from Q4 (12 → 15 filings).

Three things to read into this:

The filing count tells you how many carriers are actively repricing. Higher filing count plus higher average means it’s broad-based repricing, not a few outliers pulling the mean. The opposite signal — filing count down, average up — would be a small number of carriers stretching.

The acceleration tells you about the input-cost side. Carriers don’t file rate changes monthly; they file when their reserving + loss-development data says they have to. A jump from +6.2% to +7.8% in one quarter signals that loss data delivered to actuaries in early 2026 was worse than the data feeding the Q4 2025 batch.

The state context matters. South Carolina has hurricane exposure on the coast, weather-related loss patterns on the I-95 corridor, and a state DOI (sc.gov/doi) that processes filings at reasonable cadence. None of those are new. What’s new is the velocity of approvals + filings in this specific quarter.

What to watch for in Q2 2026

Two signals will tell you whether the trend extends or reverses:

Filing count in Q2. If South Carolina sees 18+ filings in Q2 2026 versus the 15 in Q1, the broad-based repricing thesis holds. If Q2 drops back to the 12-13 range, the acceleration was a one-quarter artifact.

Top-line average. A Q2 print at 8.5% or higher confirms continued momentum. A print between 7.5% and 8.0% says Q1 was the peak. A print below 7.5% says the acceleration broke.

The Rate Authority operator implication: South Carolina sits at a high EverQuote revenue-per-lead point ($57.54 (Rate Authority, May 2026)), making it one of the more economically attractive states in the priority CSV. If rate increases continue accelerating, consumer rate-anger keywords get more search volume + better conversion through the comparison flow. If the acceleration breaks, the economic case for heavier SC ad spend weakens at the margin.

Where this fits in the broader US rate environment

Rate Authority’s overall tracked-state average sits at 8.8% across all four states, a level the dashboard categorizes as HIGH_SWITCHING — meaning average rate increases above 8% combined with elevated consumer switching behavior. South Carolina at 7.8% is just below the all-states average but accelerating fastest; Florida at 11.5% is highest but decelerating; Georgia at 9.3% is mid-range and mildly accelerating; Maine at 6.4% is lowest but accelerating second-most.

The four tracked states do not represent a uniform US national signal. Rate Authority tracks 13 states total via the NAIC connector (SC, ME, GA, OK, IN, IL, VT, KS, MD, FL, PA, NY, TX); the rate_environment.json snapshot above pulls the four with complete Q1 + Q4 history at refresh time. Other tracked states’ Q1 data filters into the dashboard as state DOI processing completes.

Methodology

South Carolina filing data sourced from the SC Department of Insurance public rate-filing search. Quarterly aggregation reconciles approved-and-effective filings with NAIC quarterly transmission data. Methodology: /methodology/rate-authority/.

Rate Authority’s rate-environment dashboard shows South Carolina insurance carriers averaging a 7.8% Q1 2026 rate change across 15 filings, accelerating 1.6 percentage points from Q4 2025’s 6.2% — the steepest quarter-over-quarter acceleration among Rate Authority’s four primary tracked states.

Cite this analysis as:

Rate Authority. "South Carolina Insurance Rate Filings — Top Accelerator
Among Tracked States (Q1 2026)." 2026-05-23.
https://rateauthority.org/indicators/south-carolina-q2-2026-rate-acceleration-2026-05-23/

(Source: Rate Authority, May 2026.)

Rate Authority — daily-refreshed US insurance rate filings with per-record provenance. Free, CC BY 4.0.