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Who held a gun to State Farms head to write these 11,000 policies in the first place? They had to know where these properties were and the exposure they had. Most companies have moratoriums in place now and the TWIA is where the windstorm is obtained. I hope the AG holds their feet to the fire. Did they ever refund premiums from the end of the mold crisis? They have been fighting that for several years. The good neighbors are not so good.
In a free market economy, which is what we have, hold and promote in the US, customers are not obligated to renew their insurance policies with the same carrier each year. And, in turn, insurance companies have the same right, according to their underwriting guidelines, as to renew coverage or not. It is the customer’s right to place their insurance coverage with the most competitive insurer. The reciprical of this, is it is an insurance company’s right to insure in areas that meet their business objectives. I am not an agent for State Farm, but I do think it is their right to determine what counties / zip codes they wish to do business. Making them do business in an area that is prone to higher claims frequency will only penalize customers in other areas of the state in the form of higher premiums, to pay for higher claim prone areas of the state. Let the free market system work as it was intended.
I agree with you and so should every other agent. I dont work for SF either but I am tired of every state holding them to standards that they dont hold other carriers to.
““Even with these changes, State Farm has more policies in coastal counties than any other private insurer.”
so, there must be another reason for non-renewal! because they still have property in those proned areas. but the fact that the AG is claiming a falseity of availability of insurance, when in fact they have so much already insured in the area. so what is new?
Well, all I can say is that I’ve been a loyal customer of State Farm for over 35 years, and now my Homeowner’s is being dropped, and I’ll have to move my Auto coverage as well, since it now goes up with my losing the multiline coverage.
I live here, and I want the TxAG to keep on pressuring State Farm, especially since today I found out that they are going to resume writing policies for anyone after November, and since my policy is up in October, I’m out of luck.
Beagle, as an Independent Agent I hear stories like yours all the time. I have written several policies this year from State Farm. In most cases, they had someone a long time and had the automatic renewal going and hadn’t updated the coverage and was banking on the loyalty of the customer. Rates have been going up for a while and they never refunded their rate increases that everyone else did. A lot of their customers have had enough, especially in this economy.