Posted On: August 18, 2008, 11:40 am CDT

Posted By: Quinn

No actually I am not a Farmers employee, nor do I work in personal lines insurance at all. Having said that, it would appear that Farmers may be in a different situation than some of the other carriers in the state of NC due to their really low overall percentage of homeowner writings in the state. Depending on how the state has decided to make each carrier participate in the Cat. assessment Farmers (unlike Allstate, State Farm, etc....) may feel that its simply not worth the risk considering their relatively small writings in the state. They would probably have a different stance if they wrote 25-50% of the homes in the state and could use this large amount of premium to offset their participation in the Cat. fund after a storm. Just a guess. The point is....this is their decision and its not Colleen or anyone else's place to judge them as having bad management, too dumb to take advise, etc...... Actually it would seem just the opposite as at least they are smart enough to walk away before the next hurricane hits. Sometimes the AIGs of the world get too focused on just the premium and don't make these type of smart business decisions. And yes, NC should be careful because FL is a good example of what happens when the State trys too hard to control the insurance marketplace. The good news here is that NC homeowners do have plenty of other choices so no one should be that upset with Farmers.