State Farm stops offering home owner insurance in Mississippi

From USA Today...

State Farm — which insures about one of every three Mississippi homes — is the first company since Hurricane Katrina to stop offering new policies throughout a state in the Gulf Coast area. Its move underscores the precarious nature of the region's insurance. Since the hurricane, insurers have cut back on homeowner policies in affected coastal areas.

The decision Wednesday is one State Farm came to "reluctantly," says company spokesman Phil Supple, partly because of the torrent of lawsuits and rulings in Mississippi since Katrina and the uncertainty of pending legal battles. The move doesn't affect existing policyholders, at least for now. State Farm is the largest insurer of homes in the USA, as well as in Mississippi. Last year, the company wrote about 29,000 new homeowners policies in the state....

Insurers are still grappling with thousands of homeowners' lawsuits related to Katrina damage. At issue is whether homes reduced to slab were damaged by wind or water. Homeowners policies cover wind damage, but only federal flood policies cover flooding.

Who was it that recently said...

The millions awarded in these illegal lawsuit lottery scams will be paid by you and me in raised insurance premiums. In other words we are being forced to participate in an illegal lottery while the courts go along, ignoring the law.

Oh, yeah, that was me. Of course I underestimated the insurance industry's reaction, just as many overestimated the consequences of these "lotteries". If you live in hurricane prone area why wouldn't you get flood insurance?

What insurance companies remain in the region can now charge exorbitant prices for homeowner's insurance, since there's so much less competition now. Gulf Coast residents need to make sure they "thank" the cretins who forced this on them by refusing to get flood insurance, then using the sympathy of the nation to force the insurance companies to pay on policies they never had.

Posted by Danny Carlton at February 15, 2007 5:10 AM