State Farm to stay in Florida, drop 125,000 property policies [The Miami Herald]

Dec. 16--State Farm will remain in Florida under a deal that allows it to increase insurance rates by a maximum of 14.8 percent and drop about 125,000 homeowner policies.

Some homeowners might see a larger increase because State Farm will also discontinue a series of discounts that it voluntarily offered, such as for having a burglar alarm or multiple policies with the company.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty announced the arrangement Wednesday morning, ending a nearly 11-month standoff with the insurer.

The agreement ensures the state's largest private insurer will maintain about 680,000 policies.

"A leaner State Farm is better than no State Farm at all," McCarty said during a news conference in Tallahassee Wednesday morning.

State Farm agents will have the opportunity to place the homeowners that will be dropped by the insurer with other companies.

Citizens Property Insurance should "be only a last resort" for these homeowners, Belinda Miller, Florida's deputy insurance commissioner, said during the news conference.

Regulators won a huge concession from State Farm: The insurer agreed to let its agents write homeowners policies for other companies in order to find an insurer for the 125,000 policies the company is dropping.

This is a huge victory for the 789 State Farm agents and the total 5,000 employees in State Farm agencies throughout the state. The agents had feared they would lose about half of their business if State Farm no longer wrote property insurance in Florida.

State Farm had said in January it would stop writing property policies in Florida after it was denied a rate increase of 47 percent.

McCarty said the 125,000 State Farm policies that will be dropped will come from high-risk areas, likely including South Florida.

Nonrenewal notices on the policies to be dropped will begin going out Feb. 1 for nonrenewals beginning Aug. 1.

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