Consumer group: State Farm bungled California reinsurance
The Golden State's largest home insurer is seeking a 30% rate hike.
A Los Angeles-based advocacy group alleges that California’s State Farm General unnecessarily bought hundreds of millions of dollars of excess reinsurance from its parent company, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. over the past decade, but got little back in return, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.
Consumer Watchdog is accusing State Farm, the Golden State’s largest home insurer, of boosting its parent company’s profits at the expense of policyholders while reporting financial distress and the need for a 30% rate hike.
State Farm declined to comment on the allegations, saying it was “not appropriate” to do so while the rate filing is being reviewed by the state Department of Insurance, the Times said.
Consumer Watchdog, which is challenging the rate increase, calculated that State Farm General bought a total of $2.2 billion worth of homeowners’ reinsurance from multiple parties between 2014 to 2023. It got back $400 million to cover claims, recovering a little less than 20% of what it paid for in reinsurance. The group estimates that about two-thirds of the total purchase came from State Farm Mutual.
Consumer Watchdog analyzed 10 years of reinsurance data filed by the second, third and fourth biggest California home insurers by market share: CSAA Insurance Exchange; California Automobile Ins. Co., a subsidiary of Mercury General; and Fire Insurance Exchange, a member of Farmers Insurance Group.
It found that while Fire Insurance Exchange also bought large amounts of reinsurance from its parent, all three companies received more than State Farm in reimbursements for every dollar of reinsurance they purchased — and especially benefited during the catastrophic fire years of 2017 and 2018.
Carrier financial distress
The Times report noted that the allegations against State Farm General arrive when the carrier is not only seeking steep rate hikes for its homeowners, condominium and renters policies, but also after it announced in March that it would not renew 72,000 home, apartment and other property policies because of soaring reconstruction costs, increasing wildfire risks and outdated state regulations.
State Farm General has already received significant home insurance rate increases, including a 6.9% boost in January 2023 and a 20% hike that went into effect in March, the Times said.
State Farm warned in its rate increase filing that its financial condition would deteriorate if the premium increase is not approved, according to the Times.
The company saw net losses grow to $880 million last year from $98.4 million in 2022. But they narrowed to $53.8 million in the first six months of this year, according to rating agency A.M. Best, which rated the company’s financial strength in October as “B” with a stable outlook, meaning it has a “fair” ability to meet its financial obligations.
The company’s parent State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., which lost $4.7 billion last year, earned $1. 6 billion in the first six months of this year. In October, it earned A.M. Best’s top financial strength rating of A++ but with a “negative outlook.”
Contributing writer Michael S. Fischer is a longtime financial services journalist.
See also: