State Farm to stop offering new home insurance policies in California due to "growing catastrophe exposure"

United Services Automobile Association—more commonly known as USAA—will sharply increase its wildfire safety demands for all new home policies… As of 2022, USAA was the seventh-largest provider of homeowners insurance in California…

Starting in March 2024, four USAA companies plan to only sign new homeowners policies if the home in question has a wildfire risk score of 1 on a scale of 32, where a higher number signifies greater risk, according to the filing. Previously, USAA had a different cutoff score for each county, but none of the scores were below 12.

DB2

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By so drastically limiting the market makes the market so small, it can be eliminated by declaring it an “uneconomic market to serve”.

I read the Wall Street Journal every day, six days a week. The stories on the news pages are generally centered, but the selection of news stories is not. And the opinion page is a laff riot,

Speaking of laff riot…

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It is limited because it is uneconomic. Car insurance problems as well.

For insurers nationally, providing auto policies has become much more expensive recently because the cost of car repairs has soared and collision numbers are elevated. As a result, car insurance rates have risen faster than most other expenses in the past year.

In California, premiums are going up just like they are everywhere else, but insurance companies say state regulators aren’t adequately approving car insurance rate increases to match the rise in costs. Some insurers say they have actually been losing money overall on auto policies.

DB2