Farmers Insurance Returning to Louisiana

Louisiana insurance regulators have approved rate and form filings for Farmers Insurance in advance of California-based insurer’s re-entry into the Louisiana market.

The Louisiana Department of Insurance reported that Farmers is returning to the Louisiana market in March with auto, homeowners, condo and renters insurance.

Farmers began selling homeowners policies in Louisiana in 1999. Its market share in Louisiana peaked in 2007 when it became the seventh largest homeowners insurer in the state with 4.1% of the state’s policies and $56.2 million in direct written premium. But the insurance group began shedding policies in the difficult market after Hurricane Katrina and exited in 2014, leaving only a subsidiary, Foremost Insurance Co., doing residential property business in Louisiana.

The LDI said Farmers decided to return to Louisiana as part of a national expansion to the East and South. In the past decade, it has expanded into Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Louisiana will be the 40th state where the company sells insurance under the Farmers brand.

According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Farmers Insurance Group was the ninth largest property and casualty insurer by premium in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.

Farmers will do business in Louisiana under the names Farmers Insurance Exchange and Truck Insurance Exchange. Farmers plans to offer policies in all 64 parishes.

With Farmers’ returns to the market, the Louisiana Department of Insurance will have recruited 32 new property insurance companies to Louisiana since 2006.

Source: LDI

Topics Louisiana Agribusiness