Comment Sparse On 80 Percent State Farm Home Insurance Hike

[The Straight Story]

Comment Sparse On 80 Percent State Farm Home Insurance Hike

POSTED: 7:22 pm EDT June 5, 2006
UPDATED: 8:07 pm EDT June 5, 2006

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Lynn Martin took a day off work and drove all the way from Punta Gorda on Monday to talk about homeowner's insurance.

In just under a decade, the 51-year-old has seen her State Farm premiums rise 300 percent to $1,600 this year, and that's not even including the 80 percent average rate hikes the company just requested.

"My income has not increased 300 percent, and please don't tell me to sell out and move out of state," Martin said at a public hearing on the request. "We really don't know how to go live somewhere else."

Wearing a T-shirt that said "I survived Hurricane Charley," Martin was one of just five people who spoke Monday at two hearings to give feedback on the request from Florida's largest home insurer. State Farm is also seeking an approximately 95 percent increase on mobile home policies, nearly doubling rates for about 30,000 owners.

Brian Branton, a 40-year-old purchasing agent who made the trek from Palmetto on the Gulf Coast, said he was surprised and disappointed the meetings weren't better attended. Only a handful of the roughly 300 seats set up in a hotel ballroom near Walt Disney World for the meeting were taken up -- most of them by State Farm personnel.

http://www.local6.com/news/9324812/detail.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. If I had known about the hearings

I would have been there!

[The Straight Story]

2. We can give em so good ol DU comments :)

Email and fax their asses. I can't email them from my work system, but will do so from home one later.

[Dr.Phool]

3. Me too.

Citizens had a public hearing a couple of months ago, and thousands COULDN'T get in, it was so packed. I have State Farm also.