State Farm General, California’s largest home insurer, asked state officials for an emergency rate hike averaging 22% Monday, claiming the Los Angeles County fires have put the company in tough financial straits.
The insurer, a subsidiary of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. of Bloomington, Ill., said the company has already received at least 8,700 claims and paid more than $1 billion to customers. It expects to pay out “significantly more,” with the fires being the costliest natural disasters in its history.
“Immediate emergency interim approval of additional rate is essential to more closely align cost and risk and enable State Farm General to rebuild capital,” the company said in a statement.
State Farm said the latest request is necessary to rebuild the company’s capital base, so it will not have to “further constrain” the company’s ability to provide home insurance in the state. Insurance industry ratings agencies have said they expected premium increases due to the fires.
The company, which had about a 20% share of the homeowners insurance market in 2023, insures about 1 million homeowners in the state, and also has 1.8 million other policies in force.
The proposed rate hike is likely to be controversial. Last June, the company filed for a 30% rate increase for its homeowners polices, a 36% increase for condo owners and a 52% increase for renters. That request took state officials by surprise, with Insurance Commissioner Richardo Lara saying it raised “serious questions about its financial condition.”
That rate hike request is still pending.
The state Department of Insurance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In March, the company announced it would not be renewing 72,000 home, apartment and other property policies, citing soaring reconstruction costs, increasing wildfire risks and outdated state regulations.
That followed its decision in May 2023 to stop writing new business, homeowners and other personal property and casualty insurance in the state, with the exception of personal auto insurance.
Last month, after the scale of the L.A. fires became apparent, State Farm modified its decision and said it would offer renewals to any policyholder affected by the Palisades, Eaton and other county fires whose policies had not yet lapsed prior to the fires’ start on Jan. 7.
The insurer estimated that it would apply to roughly 70%, or 1,100, of the 1,626 residential policies it had in Pacific Palisades’ primary ZIP Code when it announced the nonrenewals last year.
It later expanded the renewal offer to any Los Angeles County policyholder on those same terms. The company said it had about 250,000 residential policyholders in the county.
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