Posted on 01/27/2009 8:44:22 AM PST by Fawn
State Farm Florida is pulling out of the homeowner insurance business in Florida, the company said this morning, in a surprise move that will leave more than 800,000 policyholders without coverage and will cause almost certain turmoil in the Florida insurance marketplace.
"Faced with steeply declining resources to cover future claims and expenses, State Farm Florida has little choice," said Jim Thompson, president, of State Farm Florida. ''This is not an action we wanted to take, but one we must take given the realities of the Florida property insurance market.
"We regret the impact this will have on our customers, employees and agents in Florida," he added.
Thompson said the plan requires regulatory review, and State Farm Florida will not begin dropping policies under the plan until that process is complete. Florida, however, has no law on the books that would prevent State Farm from leaving the state's homeowner insurance market.
State Farm Florida emphasized that it was submitting a two-year plan that seeks to limit disruptions for customers, and if approved, will allow them time to find coverage with other insurers.
State Farm is Florida's largest private homeowner insurer, second only to state-sponsored Citizens Property Insurance Co.
State Farm is also Florida largest automobile insurer with more than 3 million policies. The company says it will continue to offer auto coverage. However, a 2007 state law pushed by Gov. Charlie Crist prevents insurers from offering only auto policies if they offer both auto and homeowners in other states.
That is impossible because Global Warmin...I mean Climate Change models predict more and bigger hurricanes for Florida.
Did you see this? Industry ping!
You are like the guy that sits in the barber shop and complains about how he was treated on a claim with his insurance company and the company isn't there to give the details you chose not to tell.
For every bad thing you say about another company, I can match it with an insured that came to me with the problem they had with State Farm, they were one of the worst when I was in the business.
Years ago they (State Farm) stopped writing Homeowner policies in Florida and they soon found out they didn't write much of anything until they started writing Homeowners again. People (insureds) don't take well when their company doesn't do it all.
I know....doesn’t make sense.....AlGore is so smart and knows everything.....I just don’t get it.
Maybe the Florida insurance commission can mandate an end to hurricanes striking the Sunshine in order to stabilize prices for you ... or perhaps recognize insurance is a risk based industry that operates on a profit margin based on revenue being less than claim expenses.
You carefully ignore the over 50% to 90% increase requests EACH YEAR since 2005. Then, of course, the shenanigans in the SE after Mobile got clobbered by Katrina. Try to get a payoff there, if it could be construed to be water damage. State Farm screwed people for YEARS.
My little condo in West Kendall, Miami tripled twice when State Farm dumped us and we had to take the state version.
State Farm IS a mutual company ... so tell me, if you live in Montana, did YOUR homeowner's insurance rates triple in the last three years? How about Californians. Oklahomans? Washingtonians? (the State, not D.C.)
The idea was to spread the risk, not limit it to a state or group of states and then screw them when possible.
Bluntly, that's what State Farm homeowners has been doing across the board. Now, how's your fire insurance in Southern California been doing, lately?
Wadaya espect?
Buy a house in a filled-in vermin-infested swamp frequented by hurricanes and floods and someone should insure you against loss?
Yes.
I had auto and homeowner’s insurance from Allstate for 30 years. I never filed a homeowner’s claim, but I had several auto claims over the years, including one for a car that was totaled. Allstate paid promptly in all cases and even successfully defended me in a bogus lawsuit filed in connection with one of the accidents.
Having said that, I am with USAA now, thanks to mrs riverdawg. I gave Allstate a chance to match USAA’s policy and premium and they declined even to try, saying it was their experience that they couldn't compete with them.
There’s really no reason not to use USAA for just about everything if you can.
That’s just great!
sound like a smart move on the face to me, but they are opening up a lot of customers for their competition.
Aaaw poor State Farm! Come back!!!
/sarc
Good Riddance to that awful company
It will. The Insurance Commissioner is charged with making sure that all insurance companies must comply with state laws and the companies must submit to the authority of the Insurance Commissioner and if a company does not agree to the regulatory rules, then they will not be certified to sell insurance. It is not that the people can't buy it, it is that Insurance Company will be prohibited from selling it.
If I lived in Florida, I would be pretty upset if the government restricted my access to car insurance.
Gee, that's why we have elections.
Of course, I’d also be upset that I was losing my homeowners insurance because of laws that make it too risky for the insurance company to operate in my state.
That is why we have elections.
We lost our homeowners ins. in Florida at the end of 2006. It was with MetLife and they were dumping all of their homeowners policies in the area. We had this policy since 1985 and never made a claim.
We tried to get other private insurance, but private homeowner’s policies were not available. Citizens (the state run policy) was much more expensive than we were paying privately, and most people did not want the government alternative. There wasn’t any choice.
In retrospect, I am glad that the state stepped in and issued policies. I don’t think it was a question of SF being driven out of the market. I think private insurance wanted out of the market, and the state had to step in to prevent an economic disaster.
rotfl
I don’t really think there is much competition for homeowners insurance in the coastal zones. Most of us are being non-renewed and shuffled off to state issued insurance regardless of whether we’ve had a claim or not. State Farm chose not to renew my homeowners last year after being a policy holder for over 25 years.
A guy down the street from me in Phoenix owned his home free and clear. Unfortunately he was a bit of a “hoarder” and when his house caught fire, there was so much stuff inside the firemen could not get in and fight the fire. He was also self-insured. Today there is only grass growing on the lot inside a chain link fence. Poor Marv.
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