Largest home insurer in the country no longer offering policies in California (Monterey: homeowners insurance, home builders)

[cb73]

I bought my house in 1995 and at that time the only insurance company willing to write a new homeowner's policy in California was Farmers. Everyone else had pulled out. They've probably done that a time or two since then.

Their whole reason of providing insurance is for them to make money, not for you to be protected.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

what is going on with this decision is the same as goes on with insurance companies everywhere. They assess the risk numbers and reassess constantly. Any circumstance that doesn’t keep the odds to their extreme favor - gets the axe.

I realize this as I look at all the earthquake insurance premiums we've paid in the past decades... The costs of new policies are prohibitive.

[JGC97]

Here's the real reason SF is leaving . . .

It all has to do with Proposition 103, a Measure that was passed in 1988 where insurance companies are prohibited from raising rates without prior approval from the state. This Proposition passed with a 51% majority from voters.

https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-cons...venor/info.cfm

Proposition 103, passed by California voters in November 1988, requires the "prior approval" of California's Department of Insurance before insurance companies can implement property and casualty insurance rates. The ballot measure also required each insurer to "roll back" its rates 20 percent. Prior to Proposition 103, automobile, property and casualty insurance rates were set by insurance companies without approval by the Insurance Commissioner.

I sometimes forget that we (voters) are responsible for some of the events that happen down the road after we vote for something. No doubt, others will be leaving soon, as well.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by HereOnMars

Here's the real reason SF is leaving . . .

It all has to do with Proposition 103, a Measure that was passed in 1988 where insurance companies are prohibited from raising rates without prior approval from the state. This Proposition passed with a 51% majority from voters.

https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-cons...venor/info.cfm

I sometimes forget that we (voters) are responsible for some of the events that happen down the road after we vote for something. No doubt, others will be leaving soon, as well.

Good catch Mars!

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Good catch Mars!

I can't take credit for that. It was a story on this morning's news. I'd forgotten we voted for that in '88. It makes sense to me why we haven't seen the rate increase here in CA like people have in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Colorado, and Florida, to name some states. It makes sense, though. Claims for damage and destruction due to hurricanes, tornadoes, and Colorado's massive wildfires are the reason those states are seeing higher rates. We have the protection of Prop 103 but is that protection going to ultimately shoot us in the foot? Time will tell.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by HereOnMars

I can't take credit for that. It was a story on this morning's news. I'd forgotten we voted for that in '88. It makes sense to me why we haven't seen the rate increase here in CA like people have in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Colorado, and Florida, to name some states. It makes sense, though. Claims for damage and destruction due to hurricanes, tornadoes, and Colorado's massive wildfires are the reason those states are seeing higher rates. We have the protection of Prop 103 but is that protection going to ultimately shoot us in the foot? Time will tell.

Time is telling….

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by HereOnMars

I can't take credit for that. It was a story on this morning's news. I'd forgotten we voted for that in '88. It makes sense to me why we haven't seen the rate increase here in CA like people have in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Colorado, and Florida, to name some states. It makes sense, though. Claims for damage and destruction due to hurricanes, tornadoes, and Colorado's massive wildfires are the reason those states are seeing higher rates. We have the protection of Prop 103 but is that protection going to ultimately shoot us in the foot? Time will tell.

Sure you get credit. You watched the news, saw the report, relayed to the waiting masses on CD

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by Finper

Time is telling….

And Dolly Parton (Truvy) said it best in Steel Magnolias ... Time marches on and sooner or later you realize it is marchin' across your face.

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Sure you get credit. You watched the news, saw the report, relayed to the waiting masses on CD

I always watch the news. I don't take the word of the social media machine to enlighten me, especially when it come to local issues. It's not that I don't care what's happening in other states but their issues don't affect my daily life. If something's going on here, I want to know why and with enough digging I can usually find the answer. Although, I've shared information in the past and been shot down by others who don't want to believe it. So, I share what I want now and keep the rest to myself. I let others learn for themselves. It is fun to watch them eat crow, though. I know. I'm evil

[Ruth4Truth]

The NY Times in on the story. Excerpts:


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/c...alifornia.html

The largest insurer in California said it would stop offering new coverage. It’s part of a broader trend of companies pulling back from dangerous areas.

“Risk has a price,” said Roy Wright, the former official in charge of insurance at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now head of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a research group. “We’re just now seeing it.”
In parts of eastern Kentucky ravaged by storms last summer, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple. In Louisiana, the top insurance official says the market is in crisis, and is offering millions of dollars in subsidies to try to draw insurers to the state.
And in much of Florida, homeowners are increasingly struggling to buy storm coverage. Most big insurers have pulled out of the state already, sending homeowners to smaller private companies that are straining to stay in business — a possible glimpse into California’s future if more big insurers leave.

• Michael Soller, a spokesman for the California Department of Insurance, said the agency was working to address the underlying factors that have caused disruption in the insurance industry across the country and around the world, including the biggest one: climate change. He highlighted the department’s Safer From Wildfires initiative, a fire resilience program, and noted that state lawmakers are also working to control development in the areas at highest risk of burning.

• But Tom Corringham, a research economist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego who has studied the costs of natural disasters, said that allowing people to live in homes that are becoming uninsurable, or prohibitively expensive to insure, was unsustainable.
  
  He said that policymakers must seriously consider buying properties that are at greatest risk, or otherwise moving residents out of the most dangerous communities. “If we let the market sort it out, we have insurers refusing to write new policies in certain areas,” Dr. Corringham said. “We’re not sure how that’s in anyone’s best interest other than insurers.”

[bpollen]

This is tough on curent homeowners there. They can't even sell their homes, if they're not insurable. Horrible situation. And people should not be buying homes there for the first time, unless they can do without good homeowner's insurance. It's an overly hazardous area, where you have to live at your own risk. The same is true for some of the Gulf of Mexico high-hurricane-risk areas.

Things have changed. The climate has changed. Risks have changed. The shores are eroding. People need to stop moving into high-risk areas, and those who are there need to leave, when they can. It's going to get worse.