I’m pro-free market and I’d hate to see what happened in Florida happen elsewhere. With that said, what has changed since last August that would justify another rate increase…especially one as large as 45%?
I think the bottom line is State Farm doesn’t want to insure in catastrophe prone areas.
They do not want to insure in cat prone areas at the inadequate rates they have now and there is no difference in Florida, except that Mississippi has a chance to make a difference here that Florida did not. If you want them to stay in Mississippi, give them am adequate rate increase. If you fight and insist what they are doing is wrong they will leave. Trust me they are not bluffing.
If you do not like their rates go shopping and find someone cheaper, but also consider solvency and claims paying ability. And I do not want to hear about claims paying history with State Farm. Wind is wind and flood is flood, if you did not have flood coverage, you were an idiot to think they would pay it under the HO policy.
State Farm is perfect. They should be able to get any rate increase they apply for without anyone questioning it at all. They pay all their claims 100% of the time and never do anything wrong. They never would try to over charge anyone and they would not ask for a rate increase for anything more than to make a modest, tiny little profit so they could stay in business. You should be willing to pay more than your mortgage payment each month to be part of the elite perfect company. If it is too much money for you in these strong economic times then you can always insure with those other companies who cannot pay any claim and who operate at a loss at all times.
It’s hard to have much sympathy for people who have chosen to live in an area prone to annual tropical storms and hurricanes. This isn’t a “risk” of loss, it’s a “probability”, and just a question of time. Having handled multiple catastrophe claims from Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana I can attest to the fact that many homes have had multiple losses with a high severity. The rest of the country can only subsidize their premiums so much. If they choose to stay, they should pay.
There is no area that is immune to all risks there Robert. A hurricane prone area generally does have higher rates. I think what folks here are saying is 45% seems like an excessive increase after they just were awarded an increase last year.
From Robert’s comment: “If they choose to stay, they should pay.”
Mississippi has the lowest median household income in the country. Two of the three counties that would be affected by the proposed rate increase (Hancock and Harrison) have median household incomes even lower than the Mississippi median. The median household income in the other county (Jackson) is not much above Mississippi’s median household income.
The point is this: the people that would be affected by this rate hike are not wealthy individuals engaged in a beachfront lifestyle. Rather, they are relatively poor families doing what they can do get by. They do not “choose to stay.” Because of their economic situation, these families don’t have the option of leaving.
The prevention of rate hikes such as this on people such as these is an important part of the purpose of insurance regulation in the U.S.
What gets me about the coastal insurance situation is that insurers have gotten both rate increases and high wind deductibles that virtually nullify most storm claims and they still don’t want to write homeowners coverage in coastal areas. They now have it their way and caused significant displacement in the market. Of course, insurers are now in the drivers seat because they can refuse to write policies in certain areas unless they get what they want. They actually practices Rohm Emanual’s, “Never let a crisis go to waste” long before he made that statement.
Quoting R Emanual is scary. He’s from Chicago and like our prez, if his mouth is moving you have to question it.
Every area is prone to some hazards and rates are based on the probability of the hazard. In the midwest we don’t have hurricanes but we have tornados and blizzards. Our rates are based on that, not on the ability of anyone to pay the rate. Just like Wisconsins manditory auto req., it will hurt some people but if you can’t pay, you can’t play. I am in an area with poor and sympathize but I am not in the tax bracket where I can help pay for everyone else.
No one was implying that they were wealthy so they should cough it up….it’s actually rather irrelevant that they “can’t afford it” …every day people make financial decisions …….if you cannot afford something, you simply do not consume it. Why oh why, the mentality of private industry as Charity under Obama…..
I want a new Bentley, but can’t even begin to figure out how to pay for it. I suppose that I can either buy a car that cost less and has fewer features, or walk.
It’s kind of the same with most things we buy, except in the past we have managed to finance everything and now can not afford to pay all of these bills. So either take cheaper less complete homeowners insurance or we walk. Don’t ask Obama to give you money to pay your insurance, just be proud that you are not soaking off someone elses hard work and walk.
Neither of these comments is responsive to the point that the people most affected by these rate hikes are people who simply cannot afford to leave. Many of the families who would be affected have lived in the area for generations – well before skyrocketing insurance rates became a problem. Being able to afford to stay in the home one has lived in for years is in no way similar to choosing to buy an expensive car as the cost of the car is clear from the outset.
Nor is the comment likening rate regulation to government subsidies accurate. The government allows banks to require mortgagees to carry homeowners insurance. When demand cannot vary, competition alone will not create a fair price. Thus, because the government has imposed this burden, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure fair and reasonable rates. This isn’t a subsidy – it’s the government doing its job to protect people who were forced to buy a product.
Questions of fairness aside, allowing such a dramatic rate hike could very likely lead to economic chaos in the affected areas. If the poorer people in those areas can no longer afford to stay, how will the local economy function? Businesses will be unable to find employees to fill lower paying positions without dramatically increasing wages, and such wage increases would increase the costs of living for everyone in the area. Dramatic rate hikes have implications far beyond the policies immediately affected, which is yet another reason why government intervention is necessary.
state farm is slippery as an eel.i see no difference in the way they have treated us verses allstate they sell a policy with hurricane coverage knowing full well that when the time comes they can revert to the smallest of print loop holes.paying 10,000 for a roof on a house that no longer exists and then telling you that is the total of your wind damage[hmmmm]just criminal
So you think that the government needs to control the rates because the poor people can’t afford to pay for the risk involved with their home. Welcome to communism!
We subsidize everything for the poor but do not hold them accountable to handle their own finances. Time to find another country.
I suppose priorities are useless since the government is supposed to take care of all our needs. What happened to personal responsibility? So they can’t afford to buy insurance in a high priced area that is prone to wind claims, I am sure that if someone looked into some of their spending habits they would find the money is being spent on trivial things, like lottery tickets, beer, $6 a pack cigarettes, and fancy hub caps that spin. These things are clearly more important to them than insurance, so why are we defending their decision to buy what they want.
I’m pro-free market and I’d hate to see what happened in Florida happen elsewhere. With that said, what has changed since last August that would justify another rate increase…especially one as large as 45%?
I think the bottom line is State Farm doesn’t want to insure in catastrophe prone areas.
No different than Florida especially with failing to provide wind mitigation discounts.
They do not want to insure in cat prone areas at the inadequate rates they have now and there is no difference in Florida, except that Mississippi has a chance to make a difference here that Florida did not. If you want them to stay in Mississippi, give them am adequate rate increase. If you fight and insist what they are doing is wrong they will leave. Trust me they are not bluffing.
If you do not like their rates go shopping and find someone cheaper, but also consider solvency and claims paying ability. And I do not want to hear about claims paying history with State Farm. Wind is wind and flood is flood, if you did not have flood coverage, you were an idiot to think they would pay it under the HO policy.
State Farm is perfect. They should be able to get any rate increase they apply for without anyone questioning it at all. They pay all their claims 100% of the time and never do anything wrong. They never would try to over charge anyone and they would not ask for a rate increase for anything more than to make a modest, tiny little profit so they could stay in business. You should be willing to pay more than your mortgage payment each month to be part of the elite perfect company. If it is too much money for you in these strong economic times then you can always insure with those other companies who cannot pay any claim and who operate at a loss at all times.
It’s hard to have much sympathy for people who have chosen to live in an area prone to annual tropical storms and hurricanes. This isn’t a “risk” of loss, it’s a “probability”, and just a question of time. Having handled multiple catastrophe claims from Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana I can attest to the fact that many homes have had multiple losses with a high severity. The rest of the country can only subsidize their premiums so much. If they choose to stay, they should pay.
There is no area that is immune to all risks there Robert. A hurricane prone area generally does have higher rates. I think what folks here are saying is 45% seems like an excessive increase after they just were awarded an increase last year.
From Robert’s comment: “If they choose to stay, they should pay.”
Mississippi has the lowest median household income in the country. Two of the three counties that would be affected by the proposed rate increase (Hancock and Harrison) have median household incomes even lower than the Mississippi median. The median household income in the other county (Jackson) is not much above Mississippi’s median household income.
The point is this: the people that would be affected by this rate hike are not wealthy individuals engaged in a beachfront lifestyle. Rather, they are relatively poor families doing what they can do get by. They do not “choose to stay.” Because of their economic situation, these families don’t have the option of leaving.
The prevention of rate hikes such as this on people such as these is an important part of the purpose of insurance regulation in the U.S.
What gets me about the coastal insurance situation is that insurers have gotten both rate increases and high wind deductibles that virtually nullify most storm claims and they still don’t want to write homeowners coverage in coastal areas. They now have it their way and caused significant displacement in the market. Of course, insurers are now in the drivers seat because they can refuse to write policies in certain areas unless they get what they want. They actually practices Rohm Emanual’s, “Never let a crisis go to waste” long before he made that statement.
Quoting R Emanual is scary. He’s from Chicago and like our prez, if his mouth is moving you have to question it.
Every area is prone to some hazards and rates are based on the probability of the hazard. In the midwest we don’t have hurricanes but we have tornados and blizzards. Our rates are based on that, not on the ability of anyone to pay the rate. Just like Wisconsins manditory auto req., it will hurt some people but if you can’t pay, you can’t play. I am in an area with poor and sympathize but I am not in the tax bracket where I can help pay for everyone else.
No one was implying that they were wealthy so they should cough it up….it’s actually rather irrelevant that they “can’t afford it” …every day people make financial decisions …….if you cannot afford something, you simply do not consume it. Why oh why, the mentality of private industry as Charity under Obama…..
I want a new Bentley, but can’t even begin to figure out how to pay for it. I suppose that I can either buy a car that cost less and has fewer features, or walk.
It’s kind of the same with most things we buy, except in the past we have managed to finance everything and now can not afford to pay all of these bills. So either take cheaper less complete homeowners insurance or we walk. Don’t ask Obama to give you money to pay your insurance, just be proud that you are not soaking off someone elses hard work and walk.
Neither of these comments is responsive to the point that the people most affected by these rate hikes are people who simply cannot afford to leave. Many of the families who would be affected have lived in the area for generations – well before skyrocketing insurance rates became a problem. Being able to afford to stay in the home one has lived in for years is in no way similar to choosing to buy an expensive car as the cost of the car is clear from the outset.
Nor is the comment likening rate regulation to government subsidies accurate. The government allows banks to require mortgagees to carry homeowners insurance. When demand cannot vary, competition alone will not create a fair price. Thus, because the government has imposed this burden, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure fair and reasonable rates. This isn’t a subsidy – it’s the government doing its job to protect people who were forced to buy a product.
Questions of fairness aside, allowing such a dramatic rate hike could very likely lead to economic chaos in the affected areas. If the poorer people in those areas can no longer afford to stay, how will the local economy function? Businesses will be unable to find employees to fill lower paying positions without dramatically increasing wages, and such wage increases would increase the costs of living for everyone in the area. Dramatic rate hikes have implications far beyond the policies immediately affected, which is yet another reason why government intervention is necessary.
state farm is slippery as an eel.i see no difference in the way they have treated us verses allstate they sell a policy with hurricane coverage knowing full well that when the time comes they can revert to the smallest of print loop holes.paying 10,000 for a roof on a house that no longer exists and then telling you that is the total of your wind damage[hmmmm]just criminal
So you think that the government needs to control the rates because the poor people can’t afford to pay for the risk involved with their home. Welcome to communism!
We subsidize everything for the poor but do not hold them accountable to handle their own finances. Time to find another country.
I suppose priorities are useless since the government is supposed to take care of all our needs. What happened to personal responsibility? So they can’t afford to buy insurance in a high priced area that is prone to wind claims, I am sure that if someone looked into some of their spending habits they would find the money is being spent on trivial things, like lottery tickets, beer, $6 a pack cigarettes, and fancy hub caps that spin. These things are clearly more important to them than insurance, so why are we defending their decision to buy what they want.