Delays in US property and casualty insurance rate filings are costing insurers an estimated $72.8m per day, with most objections linked to preventable operational errors rather than disputes over pricing itself, according to new research from ZestyAI.
The InsurTech company analysed more than 2 million P&C rate and form filings through its regulatory intelligence platform, ZORRO Discover, covering over 200 million pages of regulatory documentation, according to FF News.
The research found that filing delays are typically caused by submission quality issues, including incomplete documentation, missing exhibits, inconsistent supporting data and unclear explanations around pricing factors.
According to ZestyAI, many objections arise before regulators even begin reviewing the substance of proposed rate changes.
The company examined 147 homeowners’ insurance filings approved during the second and third quarters of 2025 in US prior-approval states, where insurers cannot implement new pricing until formal regulatory approval is granted.
Across those filings, the average approved rate increase was 8.49%. Applied against $51.7bn in homeowners’ direct written premium, ZestyAI estimates that every day of approval delay represents around $12m in lost pricing impact for insurers. When scaled across all P&C lines, that figure rises to approximately $72.8m per day.
A separate review of more than 4,492 personal auto rate filings found that submissions receiving no objections were approved in an average of 14 days, while filings attracting at least one objection took an average of 51 days to clear regulatory review.
ZestyAI said objections consistently cluster around a small number of recurring operational issues, including filing packaging errors, insufficient actuarial support, unsupported rating factors, incomplete predictive model documentation and unclear catastrophe assumptions.
The analysis highlighted specific examples across several states. In Connecticut, missing or incomplete actuarial checklists were cited in 70% of objected personal auto filings. In Montana, insufficient support for rating factors accounted for 83% of homeowners’ filing objections, while in Florida regulators frequently challenged wind-loss modelling and catastrophe-related assumptions.
ZestyAI senior director of regulatory and government affairs Bryan Rehor said, “Regulatory delay isn’t really about regulators slowing things down – it’s a function of execution.
“Most of what’s triggering objections is mechanical: a missing unity exhibit, the wrong checklist, an unsupported discount factor. Filing and response quality alone can be the difference between a one-month approval and a six-month one.”
Rehor added, “Each objection cycle resets the review clock, expands its scope, and increases the likelihood of further follow-up.
“That’s where technology can help – by enforcing consistency across jurisdictions and filing cycles, without replacing actuarial or regulatory judgment.”
ZestyAI said the findings highlight growing pressure on insurers to modernise filing workflows as regulators demand greater transparency around predictive models, catastrophe assumptions and pricing methodologies.
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