State Farm Seeks Homeowners Rate Increase (FL - avg 70% hike)

[The Straight Story]

State Farm Seeks Homeowners Rate Increase

POSTED: 4:52 pm EDT May 12, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- State Farm, the largest home insurer in Florida, is seeking to boost premiums by an average of about 70 percent, the company said Friday.

If approved by state regulators, the increase would be effective Aug. 15.

The company, which covers about one in five Florida homeowners, said the premium increase is largely due to higher reinsurance costs. Reinsurance is coverage for insurance companies, bought to back up the company should it have massive claims.

Home insurers have been requesting large rate increases and in some cases not renewing policies in Florida. Two years of heavy claims from hurricanes and fears of a more active period have led to a spike in the cost of reinsurance.

http://www.local6.com/news/9208459/detail.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Hate to say it, but we're going to need government backed insurance

for homes in Florida. This trend is not good. We haven't made one claim in ten years that I know of on our homeowner's policy, so we're not happy about this. Everything is a scam down here. They sell roof shingles with twenty - thirty year guarantees, but the shingles don't last ten years. People don't take the false advertisement in consideration and they don't replace them so they lose their roofs somewhere in the twelth or fifteenth year due to hurricane. So that spikes up insurance claims.

Who's really at fault? We need a good twenty-thirty year shingle to compensate for everything else we have to deal with.

[Dr.Phool]

2. Just what I fucking need

Last week the PBGC cut my pension by 50%. Then I was informed that my Health Insurance is terminated June 30th, bucause the trust fund that paid it is now broke.

And I have State Farm on my home.