In a move termed “a tough decision” by state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, rate increases were approved Thursday for Mississippi’s two largest property insurers.

Two separate divisions of Allstate Corporation are raising homeowners’ rates for wind and hail coverage by a statewide average of 13.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively. Those holding a wind and hail policy will pay the higher of the two rates.

State Farm Fire and Casualty Company is raising homeowner rates by a statewide average of 13.6 percent. Chaney said State Farm policyholders without wind coverage will not see a rate increase.

The hikes will be felt the hardest in the state’s six coastal counties, most vulnerable to hurricanes, and comes barely a week before the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf Coast.

Deductibles will vary with higher ones assigned to homes closer to the coast, and the maximum will be 5 percent.

Chaney, a former two-term state senator and representative who campaigned to lower rates and, possibly, abolish the office, said the move actually saves the state’s homeowners money because the companies would have pulled out of the state entirely without the rate increases and forced up the cost of the state-supported wind pool insurance.

“It would have been $700 higher than Allstate,” Chaney said.

An estimated 4,000 customers will be moved to the wind pool, State Farm spokesman David Majors said.

The rates become effective Sept. 22 on new business and Nov. 6 for renewals. Coastal policyholders without wind coverage and homeowners in central Mississippi will not see increases, Chaney said.

A previous request by Allstate to raises rates 29 percent was rejected, Chaney said.

State Farm, the state’s largest insurer, announced in February 2007 it would suspend writing new commercial and homeowner policies.