With less than two months remaining before the start of hurricane season, one storm appears to have already come and gone.

The fuss initially raised over new guidelines issued in December regarding coastal insurance for homeowners seems to have died down. The guidelines, issued by the state Insurance Department, prohibit insurance companies from requiring homeowners living near the coast to install storm shutters as the sole means for new or renewal business. The guidelines require insurance companies to consider other recommendations, such as plywood, impact-resistant glass and hurricane deductibles.

“From our perspective, that allows you to price the policies based on the risk,” said Joseph Annotti, spokesman for the Chicago-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. “The crisis appears to have been abated.”

‘A Lot of Dough’

The issue began unfolding last June, when the department approved Andover Insurance Co.’s underwriting guidelines requiring homeowners living within three-quarters of a mile of the coast to install permanent storm shutters on their homes, or face non-renewal of their policies.

After hearing concerns from homeowners and legislators, the department issued a moratorium on implementing the Andover guidelines. The moratorium was followed by the department’s own study into the matter, public hearings and finally the new guidelines issued in December.

Since that time, Allstate Corp. has stopped underwriting new property insurance in the state – a move that the company says was not based on the storm-shutters decision, and a move that the state says has not been repeated by other insurance companies.

“Allstate is no longer writing new property insurance in Connecticut as of March,” said company spokesman Brett Ludwig. “Our announcement has had no impact on existing customers.”

While continuing to write renewals, Allstate is working with two different, independent agencies to refer customers seeking new homeowners’ policies to other insurance companies, Ludwig said.

The move to stop writing new property insurance was based on historic trends of hurricanes, and not the state’s recently adopted guidelines on storm shutters, he added.

“It was not a decision that was easy to come by,” Ludwig noted. “All the research [hurricane forecasting and modeling experts] have shown is that we’re in a period of much higher-than-normal activity.”

In neighboring Rhode Island, the company took a different approach.

In Rhode Island – where the company is still writing new property policies – Allstate created an additional storm deductible for its new and renewing homeowner policies, Ludwig said. Allstate also purchased additional reinsurance, which effectively operates as insurance for insurance companies, he said.

Allstate’s decision to stop writing new property policies in Connecticut was not the start of an industry trend, according to the Insurance Department.

“We haven’t seen any other companies take the course that Allstate’s taken,” said Amy Lazzaro, the department’s chief of staff. “All the other companies seem to be living within our guidelines.”

The department also reports that the change has not affected the state’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan, which was established by the state as an option for people unable to find any other way to get insurance.

Since the new guidelines were adopted, “[FAIR has] not seen any increase in applications along the coastline,” Lazzaro said.

Beyond the specific issue of storm shutters, however, the state is facing larger concerns of overall affordability and availability.

The state’s study from last summer revealed homeowners living near the coastline are having trouble securing insurance. While options are available through excess and surplus lines, those policies are more expensive and are not subject to the oversight and underwriting rules of the Insurance Department, according to the study.

Since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast 18 months ago, coastal premiums have been on the rise.

“We’ve been seeing the change coming for the past several years,” said Cash Mitchell, vice president of H. Pearce Co. Realtors and sales manager of the company’s Guilford office. “It got very real when Katrina hit.”

Offering a national perspective, Annotti said some areas have seen premiums increase by 25 percent or more.

In Connecticut, “we’re seeing premiums of $10,000 to $20,000 for minimum levels of insurance – and they come with huge deductibles,” Mitchell said.

“It’s a huge issue for Realtors right now,” he said. “You don’t know for certain that you can secure insurance, and if you do get it, it’s going to cost a lot of dough. The whole game has changed.”