msnbc.com and NBC News
updated 47 minutes ago
The largest homeowners insurer in Florida is canceling the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season.
The company, State Farm Florida, began sending out cancellation notices this week to nearly a fifth of its 714,000 customers, most of them in the state’s hurricane-prone coastal regions.
A spokesman for State Farm said the decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators.
State Farm stopped writing new policies and sought the increase a year ago, saying severe losses from a series of devastating hurricanes in recent years had rendered its business model unworkable. It said that without the large increase, it would be insolvent by the end of 2011.
----- (skipping)
David Miller, president of Brightway Insurance in Orlando and Jacksonville, saw a silver lining to the announcement. Spreading State Farm’s customers around to other companies will make the homeowners insurance market more competitive, and the canceled State Farm customers will likely get a better deal from their new insurers, he said.
“I think when they go to shop ... they’re going to find that there are actually some tremendous savings, and this could end up being a blessing in disguise for many people,” Miller said.
=======================================
I would be curious to know the salaries and bonuses of the executives at State Farm.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment