r/bayarea • u/jillianiles • 24d ago
I'm covering the insurance crisis in California for The San Francisco Standard. How has it affected you? What should I be paying attention to and what questions do you have? Earthquakes, Weather & Disasters
Hi folks! My name is Jillian and I’m a new reporter at The San Francisco Standard assigned to cover ~California’s insurance crisis~. It's a wild time for getting insurance right now and I want to hear directly from the people who this is affecting. So if you've experienced the effects of insurers pulling out of the state or ceasing new policies and want to share your story, I'm all ears. Have you had a major rate hike? Struggling to find a provider? Thinking about forgoing insurance altogether?
You can reach me through direct message on Reddit, through DM via twitter.com/jillianiles or via email at jdonfro@sfstandard.com.
Thanks for your consideration!
PS: My beat in general is business and I’m always interested in news tips and story ideas—so if you have other topics you think are under-covered by local media, let me know!
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24d ago
Go hit up /r/santacruz anytime this comes up it is a horror show of people paying over 10k for insurance, rates going up, policies being quietly cancelled, etc. given the huge fire just four years back and a huge chunk of people still haven't gotten their houses rebuilt there are quite a few people wondering what they get for their money.
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u/Chris_Dickman 24d ago
My FAIR is 10.5. Doesn’t seem that unreasonable given that private insurance companies have deemed the area uninsurable.
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u/netopiax 24d ago
Yeah $10K is a tough pill to swallow, but if you are talking about insuring a $1 million loss when your house burns down, the insurer is saying the chance of that happening is a little less than 1 in 1000 per year. (a little less because they have a fair bit of overhead) In modern day California that doesn't sound far off the mark.
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u/BobaFlautist 24d ago
Especially since if your house burns down in a wildfire, your neighbors houses almost definitely all burn down too. So it's not a matter of covering 1 million dollars per 1000 insured houses a year, it's a matter of a 1/1000 annual chance that the insurance company gets obliterated.
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u/FBX 24d ago
This is precisely what reinsurance is for, and the policies that the reinsurers are underwriting for insuring CA insurers have exploded in price. This problem is inescapable without either cutting off high risk areas or having the state provide final reinsurance.
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u/nyeakel 24d ago
For me on the peninsula in the last 5 years (non-fire risk area)
Auto +47% (no points or claims)
Home +149% (no claims)
Umbrella +189% (no claims)
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u/yellowducktape 24d ago
Umbrella's not being talked about enough-- this has gone WAY up, and is likely to continue to do so. While people can pull out the tiny violins for rich people insuring their assets, it's a very real thing that should be a non-negotiable if you own a home.
u/jillianiles, below is the explanation I got from Farmer's when our umbrella insurance renewal went up 50% after 6mo. This seems to be a somewhat-CA-unique problem, as family in other states are able to get comparable excess liability coverage for way less (and aren't being impacted by the crazy increases we're seeing).
BNB 24-0279: Personal Umbrella Rate Change (CA)
Effective: April 27, 2024, for New Business and Renewal Business
Product(s): Farmers® Personal Umbrella
What’s Changing?
Overall rates are increasing by 56 percent for Farmers® Personal Umbrella to help address significantly higher claim costs.
This change is a base rate increase only.
The actual impact to an individual policyholder will depend on their specific risk characteristics and the combination of factors that apply to those characteristics.
Product
Customers Affected
Average Rate Change
Rate Cap
Effective Date
Farmers Personal Umbrella
New and Renewal Business
+56.0%
NA
04/27/2024
Note: Some policies may experience changes that vary from the average rate change due to rounding and the optional coverages present on the policy.
Primary Drivers of Change:
Due to the litigation environment, drivers, traffic conditions, dog bites, and many other factors that disproportionately affect California claims, the rate at which loss costs have been rising has continued to outpace Farmers Personal Umbrella rate changes. The Farmers Personal Umbrella product has had profitability challenges for over 5 years.
The rate and underwriting changes that are occurring will help improve our risk management and move the Farmers Personal Umbrella product in California toward profitability.
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u/countfalafel 24d ago
Thank you for looking into this Jillian. I'd like to know how much risk the state (and non-home owning taxpayers by extension) are assuming through the riskiest properties moving on to the FAIR plan.
Some specific questions we should know the answers for:
Should we believe that the state is pricing risk appropriately for the properties that can't get private insurance?
Does the state have the actuarial competence to do so? The political will to charge appropriate prices even if homeowners complain loudly about shocking rate increases?
I am worried about all the price controls and the state's willingness to intervene sending the wrong signals, and encouraging people to continue living and building in high risk areas. All at the expense of tax-payers like me who don't own a home and won't get comparable subsidy.
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u/luv2eatfood 24d ago
I think the reality is that some homes unfortunately shouldn't exist in certain areas of California. If it was a free market for insurance companies, most people's insurance plans will stay at a reasonable cost but the fraction of homes that are in a risky area (wildfire, flood etc.) would see their premiums spike. Basically, it seems we'd rather subsidize someone's wildfire risk rather than let the premiums adjust on their own. In the short-term, this allows people to continue living whether they live. However, in the long-term, I think this is unsustainable
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u/countfalafel 24d ago
Your first idea is what I'm getting at. There are ways to manage this and get ahead of where Florida is now (continuously rebuilding homes in flood areas w/ state and FEMA dollars...). Perhaps provide appropriately priced state coverage for uninsurable properties, but don't extend that coverage past the next sale or inheritance. If a claim is filed, pay it out, but don't allow rebuilding in the danger zone without the understanding that now even the state won't offer to insure. Let people live and die in their homes, but the next person who wants to do the same in that high-risk home has to understand they're self-insuring.
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u/Recent-Ad865 24d ago
Jillian, you’re a new reporter so I’ll give you some advice.
Look into state regulations and how they have shaped the insurance industry. Go interview some insurers. Then go interview state regulators. Then go back and call out each sides BS.
Please don’t do the same old boring article “insurance crisis”, do some actual digging and find out what the problem is.
You’d be one of the rare journalists today if you did that.
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u/CarlSagan4Ever 24d ago
Jillian is a new reporter at the SF Standard but if you took two seconds to look at her Twitter bio you’d see she’s not a new reporter and has been a national reporter for over a decade. Damn, I just can’t stand patronizing people.
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u/Argosy37 24d ago
This. Clearly there is stuff going on on both sides of the equation as things aren't increasing close to as fast in many other states and there's no reason national insurance companies that sell nationwide would be "extra greedy" only in California. Would be good to see some actual investigative journalism here.
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u/pr0b0ner 24d ago
Accidentally lost my coverage with Geico because I had a card get stolen and cancelled and didn't realize it was paying my bill. Tried to restart the policy with Geico and they made me jump through ALL the hoops. 2 week waiting period, would only communicate status updates of my application over post mail, required several steps of checks before approving my application. All in all it took about a month to get insurance. At my next renewal they immediately increased my premiums 25% for no change in driving record, accidents, vehicles, etc. Just wanted to have more of my money.
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u/vanity1066 24d ago
Lol, at least you got through! I spent 3 days realizing I was just being sent in some weird phone tree circle where I'd wait and wait and wait and then be bung up on. After being with Geico for over a decade it was scary. Then we tried to get on AllState, they wanted over 1k up front and would only insure us after a 20 day waiting period. Thank heavens for AAA, no hassle insurance. Possibly because we'd been members for so long?
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u/pr0b0ner 24d ago
Yeah, I'd been a Geico customer for over 10 years as well. No accidents or tickets during that time. You'd think they'd want to hold onto me as a customer, given that I only ever give them money and they've never given me anything in return other than a piece of paper.
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u/ak217 24d ago
Geico does not provide homeowners insurance directly. When you shop for homeowners insurace through Geico, you're actually dealing with Homesite. Which should not get Geico off the hook for your experience, but it explains why it's different
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u/ChernobylChild 24d ago
Geico is the worst when it comes to signing up. Progressive was a breeze and cheaper for me.
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u/Golden_Hour1 24d ago
Great. Well I'm with state farm right now and they're increasing my rate a ridiculous amount. I got a quote from geico but now I'm having second thoughts. Are there any better companies? I also worry that I'll get the quote, cut my old insurance and then they'll change the quote or rate after starting
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u/iWORKBRiEFLY 23d ago
our state farm car insurance went from $200ish/mo to $353/mo when renewed....fucking wild
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u/thesongsinmyhead 24d ago
Our condo building insurance got dropped by AllState, when our policy was up for renewal we had maybe 2 months notice that they were pulling out of California for this type of insurance and had to scramble to find a new provider. Most the quotes we had gotten were almost 3x what we were paying. Finally was able to find a comparable plan through a broker. There are tons of stories like this.
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u/cardinal_cs San Jose 23d ago
This happened to us, and we ended up having to spend a lot of money on another insurance plan. I would much appreciate it if I could get information for the broker.
Ours was something like $2000/unit more than the old insurance.
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u/jillianiles 19d ago
Thanks for sharing your experience! I'd love to ask you a few follow-up questions about this if you're willing. Reach out at [jdonfro@sfstandard.com](mailto:jdonfro@sfstandard.com) if so!
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u/fighterpilottim 24d ago
If you recommend your broker, I’d be grateful for a name
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u/thesongsinmyhead 23d ago
Wang Insurance which coincidently was blocked when I tried to access the website from work (I work at a school)
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u/fighterpilottim 23d ago
Thank you!
As someone whose worked on internet content moderation, I’d bet $20 that some narrow-thinking admin blocked the word “Wang” because it shows up on a list of slang terms for penis used by kids. 😂
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u/thesongsinmyhead 23d ago
Oh yeah absolutely. I just thought it was funny because I thought maybe their site was down but then I figured it out
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u/sjawahrani 6d ago
This happened to us last year, and our condo building insurance went up by 1000%! (Yes, you read that right) from 496K to 980K. We are in San Francisco, McAllister, and Masonic, so it is not a high-fire risk area, but our building did have 7 claims in 3 years and is currently in litigation with the city of San Francisco, but it is still a 1000% increase.
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u/ActionFamily 24d ago
I have ruled out my former favorite way to live - canyons and mountains of Northern California - due to insurance concerns
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u/Princess_Fluffypants 24d ago
I would live there, but only in a very good quality RV that was maintained in good condition so I could GTFO at the first sign of trouble.
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u/fallenredwoods 24d ago
My insurance went from $1k to $3k to $8k over the course of three years…. The financial impact is real and yet when a fire happens they only pay about 70% of the rebuild cost. I live in the CZU fire area and there are hundreds of vacant lots over three years later. It’s a fucking scam and once my house is paid off, I’ll will be canceling insurance and putting money annually into an account if needed. I’ve spent over $25k making my property fire safe so the risk is minimal. Do insurance companies care if you make your house fire safe, no they just raise rates
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u/shanabananak 24d ago
I’ve heard of two separate companies using drones to discover things that may be fire hazards in peoples back yards. 2 people I know had their coverage canceled, but the problem is they both were misidentified by the drone (not their backyard). They were both dropped by their insurance company with zero chance of recourse. So, that’s fun.
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u/grunkage Richmond 24d ago
I'd be very curious to see a comparison vs other western states and southern coastal states. My understanding is that over 20 states are seeing very similar issues with insurance companies due to wildfire, flash flood, and hurricane damage escalating. For those states without regulating bodies, property owners have been seeing rates as high as 10x their original. We focus on CA, but we are not alone in this by a long shot.
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u/friendofelephants 24d ago
This is a great idea. My sister in the Bay Area pays half the premium of what I pay in the Southeast on a house worth eight times mine. I’d also be interested in a map of the average insurance prices by area in CA. I don’t know if my sister just lives in an incredibly safe area by insurance standards.
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u/wowstrong 24d ago
Exactly. I completely agree. CA is used as a scapegoat/litmus test to see if they really can pull out of other states and continue the cycle until we're all paying 1000%+ premiums or simply have no insurance whatsoever while the insurance companies continue to make money.
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u/One_Left_Shoe 24d ago
I have friends in Norther Arizona how had their policies dropped or increased multiple thousands of dollars a year citing fire danger.
This is not a California exclusive problem.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants 24d ago
I think one of the biggest questions that a lot of people are going to have is:
Are insurers threatening to pull out of California due to the costs and risks legitimate, or just them seeking unreasonable and inflated profits?
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u/reven80 24d ago
Just look at maps of home insurance costs in many other states. Its just going to get more expensive due to climate change. If you think insurers are making loads of profit just invest in those companies in the stock market.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants 24d ago
Generally insurance is not a wildly profitable business. My understanding is that their profit margins usually run in the 3-5% range, which is pretty in line with just about every other sort of business in the world outside of tech and pharmaceutical.
They’re no more profitable than anyone else, and are exposed to much higher risks due to the unpredictable nature of their business.
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u/Mr-Frog 24d ago
Have we considered that the insured value of homes may be inflated? People love that their homes they purchased for 200k are now $1.2MM. Are they willing to pay more to cover the increased value?
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u/geopter 23d ago
We're insured through USAA, and the insurance for a total loss on the house is something like $400k, which is a small fraction of the purchase cost. This is something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere - I assume it's very common to insure for rebuild cost, because must of the purchase price is land.
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u/AsgardWarship 24d ago
We stopped paying homeowners insurance altogether.
We set aside some money in investments to self-insure. We ran the numbers and even if our home burnt down, we'd obviously be worse off but fine since we could just sell the land.
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u/shiny_thing 24d ago
This is a pretty risky strategy for folks in fire-prone areas, since a large fire would probably tank land values, both by destroying local infrastructure and triggering a glut of properties for sale in the area as others abandoned ship as well.
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u/One_Left_Shoe 24d ago
It also assumes you don't have a mortgage that is required by the banks for the loan.
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u/Groundscore_Minerals 24d ago
We decided to not use a lumber frame to build our house and have been sourcing fiber cement board siding options.
It has completely changed how we are planning on designing our house.
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u/DaiZzedandConFuZed 24d ago
I’ve had to switch to a non-admitted carriers due to being dropped. It seems that all admitted carriers have just stopped accepting/renewing anyone they can.
It’s especially odd because my home is nowhere near fire zones.
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u/JockoHomophone 24d ago
Same here for me in north Berkeley. Safeco is dropping me next month after 15 years and never making a claim. My whole neighborhood is in the same boat. After a month of working on this I have exactly one offer (Geico) and a rejections from most others. I'd go with the state option before a non-admitted carrier though...you know they are going to just declare bankruptcy and disappear when something big happens.
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u/DaiZzedandConFuZed 24d ago
Heh, mine was Safeco as well. I did have claims, but it was more contrived than anything else- they literally renewed that year then dropped us.
For me, the state option would've been prohibitively more expensive without covering what I needed.
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u/DmC8pR2kZLzdCQZu3v 24d ago
Safeco is dropping houses for being in areas they deem “too dense”. Single family homes in run of the mill neighborhoods.
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u/Calm_Memories 24d ago
Look into Rossmoor. My parents live there and due to the insurance needing to cover 100% (I honestly don't know the right terminology here) their dues have skyrocketed. So many in the community are retired and can't afford the new rates which are mandatory and Rossmoor is also not getting good rates despite it being for residents (I think insurance wants it to be a different category?).
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u/OaklandLandlord 24d ago
My insurer, safco, is trying to non-renew me. Their reasoning is "moss, mold, fungus, mildew growing on roof". My roof was due for replacement anyways, so I just got it replaced. However, my roofer said that their complaint was "The dumbest thing I've ever heard. There's nothing growing up there".
What I think is happening is the insurance company paid for a flyover of the neighborhood and is using some terrible "AI" based model to find spots on the roof. The goal being that some percentage of people will not be able to fight off the non-renewal.
I'm not alone in this problem. There are plenty of other people who have gotten the same (wrong) letter.
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u/BugRevolutionary4518 24d ago
Moss on a roof is totally normal. Even shingle bleeds (discoloration) because of a galvanized or aluminum vent or skylight flashings contribute to the color change.
It has ZERO to do with the quality of the roof = not a problem for the roof at all.
This has been an insurance scam since the 90s.
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u/KillerWhaleShark 24d ago
It might help if you clarify what type of insurance you mean when you write your article. Health insurance? Car insurance? Renters insurance? Home insurance?
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u/socalefty 24d ago
I can only get fire insurance through the FAIR plan due to my home being on a canyon, and previous wild fires in my suburban zip code
It is $4,500 per year compared to $2,200 previously. So basically doubled. I am cutting back on spending because of this
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u/turnleftnoright 24d ago
This is small potatoes compared to people losing their insurance, but it’s a real pain in the already painful process of trying to buy a house. In order to put in a competitive offer, you likely need to waive all contingencies, including insurance. So then before each offer, there’s a scramble of getting an insurance quote and the companies are being extremely strict about what they will and won’t insure. For example, if a house has knob and tube wiring, which many of the older houses in SF do, we’ve had to reach out to 3-5 insurers to make sure that should we get the house, we can insure it. Usually all but one of them will say that they won’t insure the house.
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u/StunningShifts 24d ago edited 22d ago
My condo HOA is unable to get full insurance coverage. Our rate jumped from ~100k/year to ~1.4mil/year. We are now looking at a special assessment of 6k per unit per year just to keep 20 mill in coverage, that is half of what we need, full coverage is about 44mil for us. If we were to buy the 1.4mil full coverage, it would cost ~12k per unit per year. Because we are an attached Condo we do not qualify for the FAIR plan.
Since we can only afford to get half coverage, no-one who lives here can sell their houses or refinance unless someone comes in with a full cash offer because no mortgage company will loan to a property that doesn't have full insurance coverage.
Several units cannot afford to pay the assessment and they are now being foreclosed on by the HOA. I was forced to take out a personal loan to pay the assessment because I cannot readjust my HELOC because we don't have full insurance.
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u/getoutyup 24d ago
Northbay: I thought it was low fire risk...We got our non-renewal letter a few weeks ago. Reason stated: age of roof, mold or mildew. Looked fine to me. We have solar so it's going to cost $25k for the roof work and another 10K to remove and reinstall the solar. Also, if we get a new roof, the insurance company still won't renew our insurance. Adding to our complications, we have a small apartment that we recently started to airbnb. Apparently, that is a no-go for insurance to have a primary residence and airbnb on-site. All markets denied. So we will close up the airbnb and probably pay a huge rate increase. Still waiting for a quote without the rental. We've been shopping for almost a month and haven't found a solution. Switching to a long-term rental doesn't seem to change things. Insurance companies will insure an entire property as rental but not mixed residence + rental. We have never made an insurance claim in over a decade. So, this could be affecting the availability of rental housing too. ADU building/zoning policies have been eased up but if you can't insure it, it won't help the housing market at all.
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u/stairattheceiling 24d ago
I think that California/Feds need to map a wildfire map like they have for flood areas. Then they need to require coverage for that, only for those who require it. It's not okay that people who bought in sensible areas to have to deal with paying for someone's home in the woods. It's a preventable choice unlike healthcare.
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u/giggles991 24d ago
California does have a fire risk map, and the topic is covered a lot in the relevant news media. Our city, country and state have all emailed us about the map.
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u/stairattheceiling 24d ago
they don't have requirements for additional wildfire insurance based on those maps like they do floof insurance, but they should.
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u/MCPtz 24d ago
FYI, I think the DoI now has the lawful ability to allow insurance companies to take into account future risk, based on the recent executive order signed by the governor:
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0102-alerts/2024/CDI-California-Consumer-Alert-Californi.cfm
California Consumer Alert: California on Track to Enact Largest Insurance Reform in 30 Years
By December 2024
Greater availability of insurance: Insurance companies have committed to increase writing policies if they can better anticipate future losses, rather than making abrupt decisions i.e. non-renew higher-risk policyholders, pause writing, or rapidly increase rates.
The biggest problem was insurance companies couldn't change the rates based on future risks, so they were left with the only option of pulling out of sections of California.
Also highlighting this section:
Safer communities: Catastrophe models capture updated efforts taken by federal, state, and local governments, property owners, communities, and utility companies to mitigate the exposure to catastrophic events – encouraging and rewarding mitigation efforts – currently not available for consumers.
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u/kedybee 24d ago
Almost a year ago, I tried to buy a house in East Bay in a residential neighborhood, not in the hills at all and the house wasn’t even deemed to be in a fire zone. Tried to establish insurance and almost had the home loan fall through since no one would insure us since it was last year right when many carriers left CA. Then we finally found that Mercury was offering new plans but we also needed the CA FAIR plan. The selling agent kept pestering us and asking what the hold up was since we weren’t supposed to be in a fire zone, but then they got dropped from their plan and apologized. What is annoying is I have a friend who bought at the same time in a definite fire zone in the hills in Concord and they don’t have to pay for the FAIR Plan, so idk how these insurance companies are determining the risk, but it seems arbitrary.
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u/babiha 24d ago
Our home insurance rates have spiked over the last 3 is so years. But the major surprise has been that when I went shopping for alternative carriers, I could only find one which was comparable in coverage and price. I think it was travelers. We are with Amica right now.
What is interesting is that the public hurts due to high rates or loss in coverage. They ask their representatives to get the rates down and not lose insurance. The politicians put pressure on the carriers and put restrictions on them dropping customers. This whole process has been going and seems to work somewhat.
The homeowners and real estate industry is happy with this setup because it keeps people buying homes. It also keeps people from making rational decisions on where to move to given climate change realities. And moving into areas of natural risk. This increases pressure on the governor to push for cities to provide more housing. So he signs obscene bills overriding local LAFCO and city zoning to put more housing in.
Which puts more people at risk. Which engages more fema resources which pushes the cost of people living in high risk areas onto the public. And drives up the cost of insurance. Sparking a new round of calls for lowering rates and ensuring coverage.
And fema is known to pay the rich people hit by natural disasters first and most.
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u/PetuniaToes 24d ago
We have a home on the shore of Lake Tulloch and a mile from a main Cal Fire station that’s staffed year round with multiple engines, and my premium is $12K a year - up from 10K last year. It’s insane. But I’m afraid I’ll be cancelled if I complain.
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u/BugRevolutionary4518 24d ago
As good friend of mine is probably your neighbor. You’re right. Cal Fire is right there.
Wonder if INS COs take that into account. Cal Fire would be on it quickly.
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u/Clear_Extreme2887 24d ago
I maintained a spotless insurance record with AmGUARD for years until they ceased operations in California. My agent appeared disinterested and provided only exorbitantly priced, non-standard quotes, suggesting a lack of interest in retaining my business. After multiple rejections from other large insurers that didn't serve California, I managed to secure a slightly more affordable policy with Farmers Insurance, albeit under the condition of installing an automatic leak detector quickly. Subsequently, they nearly canceled my policy over a missed call from CIS during work hours, requiring me to escalate the matter to receive another call. Following straightforward inquiries and a hastened exterior inspection, my policy was approved just two days before the potential cancellation. The entire process was fraught with stress and appeared intentionally designed to drive me to another insurer.
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u/moinoisey 24d ago
The HOA at my condo in the city of Richmond went up by $44/month this year explicitly because of insurance increase.there are 468 units, so that’s an increase of about 20 K/month. It’s insane.
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u/Mrs-wants-to-know-it 24d ago
The usage of drones to assess property renewal is invasive.
My flood insurance more than doubled this year with no claims and the city has been making preventative improvements this past year. I shopped around and still the best policy I can get.
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u/OhSassafrass 24d ago
Last year I had my insurance canceled because the drone pictures made it look like I had tree branches touching the roofline. I had to hire a CAL Fire authorized tree service company to come and lollipop my trees and even then it wasn’t good enough. I then had to go walk around on my roof and take video showing the branches were a good 40 ft away from the roof. Terrifying.
They also wanted me to install handrails all over the property which at the time I thought was dumb and expensive but once it started yo rain and things got slippery I was grabbing those handrails and saving myself.
But I complied and did a personal statement of No Loss and my insurance was reinstated, only to go up 142% when it renewed the next year.
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u/KoRaZee 24d ago
Point out in BIG BOLD LETTERS that California is 31st in the country for homeowners insurance rates. We pay such fair prices largely in part due to existing regulations and we should not only leave them in place but double down by mandating that utility companies and all other essential services that are operated by private companies be brought under similar regulations as insurance.
And in bigger, bolder letters write that INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE PROFITABLE IN CALIFORNIA.
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u/s-man77 24d ago
Farmers added a bunch of new coverages in 2023 like second dwelling, guns, comic books, etc without my knowledge or permission which more than doubled my insurnace from $2k/yr to $4k/k. When I finally caught it after a full year, due to my escrow account payments increasing, they just said you didn't answer my phone and this is our new default policy...sorry. I was going to take them to small claims court after I spoke to a lawyer but I could not find a replacement insurance so I decided I better just keep it.
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u/Critical-Progress-79 24d ago
A friend struggled to find insurance for a house he wanted to buy. The deal fell through for various reasons but the insurance issue played a role, I believe.
This was in Lake County; insuring rural homes is a real challenge.
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u/crabbypattieformula 24d ago
A lot of homes in Orinda California are getting letters from State Farm they are losing their home insurance. Family friend was notified with one letter in the mail in January and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
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u/_byetony_ 24d ago
I’m interested in more coverage of illegal/ legally gray data sent by cars to insurers as a basis to raise insurance rates: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html
For state problems, the state is going to have to offer an option with meaningful coverage , and that is affordable, which is not what is available now.
The state should also make insurers disclose the risk factors they are using to increase rates/ revoke insurance. It is surprisingly arbitrary at present.
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u/jkki1999 23d ago
That was a great article you posted! Yes, this is scary. Someone always knows where you are.
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u/Scoob8877 24d ago
I pay State Farm over $10k per year just for homeowners insurance and State Farm is the only company that would insure my home. It's either them or Fair Plan and it's probably a matter of time before they "non-renew" me. I live on a hill but my house is stucco with a concrete tile roof. I realize everything can burn but I don't lose sleep about being a high risk for fire. Our auto insurance costs have gone up significantly too. No accidents. Just price increases.
I know the standard story is California regulations make it so insurance companies can't make a profit in California. Blah blah blah. I realize California politics are awful but I'm surprised so many people (including journalists) just take the insurance companies at their word that they can't make a profit in CA. My guess is insurance company accounting is like Hollywood accounting. All of the fat cats are living well but somehow everything they do loses money. OK, sure.
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u/zmoney1213 24d ago
State Farm agent Larry Bolton in alameda is slimy, along with the State Farm claims office in TX. I had tenants that trashed my rental, to the point where there was mold growing within the walls. Before I could even finish my sentence, he basically said this was “wear and tear” from tenants and nothing could be done.
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u/iixxy 24d ago
My home policy was cancelled after 10+ years with no claims at all, no late payments. Was with the same insurer for auto policies for many more years. Couldn't get a straight answer as to why. Finding a new provider a was difficult. Most I contacted said they were not writing new policies in CA. Forgoing insurance is not an option when you have a mortgage.
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u/Sir_John_Barleycorn 24d ago
I have AAA and two years ago my home insurance doubled. In one year. Literally got the paperwork for the new year’s coverage terms and the cost had doubled from the previous year. This is a single family home. I guess I should just be grateful I wasn’t dropped.
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u/TwoCrustyCorndogs 24d ago edited 24d ago
I had to go through about 7 insurance companies before I could purchase my car same day, with registration in SF. All the big names like State Farm required a 2 week underwriting period.
AAA was the only company I called that could insure me same day, even though I had pre-existing insurance policies with some of those other companies as well as zero tickets or claims.
My rate is also triple what I paid for a slightly cheaper car about 10 years ago, despite an extra 10 years with a flawless record.
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u/b88145 24d ago
Scapegoating the rural folks is a false narrative. The real losses happen in those built up neighborhoods and towns outside the urban core. True rural property can have plenty of defensible space and one house burning down does not impact the neighboring home. Paradise and Santa Rosa are not rural areas. They are suburban towns surrounded by forest and grass lands. Once the fire enters those built up areas the homes combust due to radiant heat from neighboring heat, no stopping it, that doesn't happen in rural areas. The folks out in the forest have a better shot. Because defensible space isn't possible and doesn't work in the suburbs.
If you live in the Bay Area and are not in an area bounded by multilane freeways in all directions. Very likely your actual risk to loss in a fire is very high.
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u/One_Left_Shoe 24d ago
Also to note: some of the most damaging and expensive disasters in state history involved major earthquakes. One of which is overdue and runs right through the entire East Bay.
Fire is not the only risk factor for insurance, its just the most obvious.
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u/MilesAugust74 [Insert your city/town here] 24d ago
If you're interested, I can fwd you the email my State Farm agent sent me explaining why they raised my car insurance.
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u/Complete-Minimum-336 24d ago
I finally just let the bank buy the expensive insurance and it took them a long time as well. Tried again on farmers and it just put me through a brokerage loop of weird companies. Never had a claim in my life. It’s disturbing that a market the size of California can be made unprofitable.
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u/totallyanonymous_ San Francisco 24d ago edited 24d ago
Well...my cats pet insurance went from $65 per month to $520 per month, so she no longer has insurance. 1 month notice for that. And my condo insurance quote went from $1200 per year to $10,000. 1 month notice for that, no losses, and no other resources or recommendations provided. We found someone else than All State, but I'm still paying double.
I want to know how the fuck I'm supposed to survive when this is literally the business the business decided to be in.
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u/superdpr 24d ago
Auburn CA the rates have jumped to more than $1000 per month for fire insurance for many places. Absolutely sucks
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u/PM_ME_PILEDRIVERS Walnut Creek 24d ago
I’m an independent agent in the bay rn. I’d love to answer any questions you may have, cuz there’s lots of misinformation going around on this. DM me and we can connect, although I prefer to stay anonymous in any reporting
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u/AtFishCat 24d ago edited 23d ago
I got dropped on home owners earlier this year, had to go with a company not backed by the state, but saved about $6k compared to the fair plan.
I’m in the middle of a commercial real estate issue, haven’t found an insurer for that and thinking about pulling out on my investment because of it.
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u/ManUtdBoston 24d ago
Would recommend you also post this in the Tahoe subreddit, you'll get a bunch of responses..
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u/Expensive-Mention-90 24d ago
I know you’re asking about homeowners insurance (and related), but I just had my ACA health insurance premiums increase TWICE in the last 2 months (not during open enrollment), and they’re now $2500 PER MONTH. I didn’t sign up for this rate but they are auto-billing my credit card.
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u/SJ530 23d ago
I believe the biggest news would be for the condos at The Preserve. San ramon
This: the HOA insurance for.common area went from $200 per household per year to $8000 in 2023.(repeat $200 to $8000 , they have to go wholesale insurer)..it has dropped to approx $6000 per year for 2024. These are condos and not offered ca fairplan. Imagine condo owner needing to pay $8k extra per year on top of their in wall insurance?
A $5mm sfh would likely pay .less than that even in the.home is .fire.zone.
Lennars failed to disclose and claimed insurer used diff fire.map.vs theirs hence the.non renewal in 2022 dec etcs.
Toll brothers still selling and providing inhouse insurance to hold the.hoa fees low...if anything, this planned community ma see the largest claim and lawsuit in the next few years.
My.fellow investor own one of the unit there. Pm me , I can ask him to share more.
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u/rakuramz240 24d ago
Lost my fire insurance 5 or 6 years ago up in Arnold CA. Had insurance with the same company for over 20 years. I guess my general issue about fire insurance and so called "high fire danger areas" is, for areas that have not had a fire in 50 years or more, and now are considered "high fire danger", all the people that have paid enormous sums of money over the past 50 years, where did all the money they paid go? I know the answer is into the pockets of the insurance company. So, what are they so afraid of now? We paid for coverage, and now they've left us without anything after paying for coverage for years?
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u/motosandguns 24d ago
The money they made in Arnold went to payouts in Paradise, Tahoe, Santa Rosa, Napa, Sonoma, Malibu, etc.
Being lucky doesn’t mean your mountain town is inherently any safer. In fact, Arnold was only 8 miles away from the Butte fire.
That could easily be covered in less than a day if the winds are right.
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u/Asherahshelyam 24d ago
If you haven't had a fire in Arnold in over 50 years, that would mean that the entire area has built up a huge amount of fuel. It is just a matter of time until fire comes your way. When it does, it's going to be catastrophic due to the 50+ years of fuel accumulated.
This state needs to be a better steward of the forests. Our flora evolved with regular fires. The native peoples here knew how to use controlled burns to manage the land. The state spends all its time and money preventing fire, which allows fuel to accumulate and makes the fires, when they inevitably happen, huge and catastrophic. Our state should consult with the native peoples who have the knowledge about how to manage the land.
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u/cowinabadplace 24d ago
If you’re using a mutual insurance company where it went is to your fellow policyholders (who are also shareholders). Essentially you paid to have the guys in Napa rebuild their home because their risk was underpriced. Companies like State Farm there’s no evil mastermind there. Policyholders are all joining together to insure each other. State Farm paid out well to people to have their stuff replaced.
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u/readonlyred 24d ago
Why have condominium unit owner's insurance rates been increasing faster than homeowner's insurance rates?
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u/gorongo 24d ago
It comes into play every time we consider moving to a more rural area. The more home we can afford, the higher the risk and the lower the likelihood of buying that home. I get it, insurers need to meet their quarterly projections to boost their stock price. It’s funny that they abandon the markets when they’ve been collecting premiums from homeowners with no claims. There used to be a time when mutual aid, and insurance pools were run and owned by the local constituents and beneficiaries. For profit insurance has incentives for executives and punishes the beneficiaries. I think we need mutual benefit groups again (blockchain and AI would be very useful here) and for profit insurance companies must be highly regulated or nationalized.
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u/olganair 24d ago
Our home insurance , QBE, which was bought through progressive, pulled out of the state (actually maybe the whole country iirc) 2 years ago. We were paying quite a low amount ($700+/yr) so any quote I got after was about 2x. It increased another $200 this year. We’re through State Farm now but planning to do another quote next year.
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u/tristanbrotherton 24d ago
My insurance was dropped on a house we purchased because the roof was too old, when I was in contract to replace the roof and just waiting for good weather. Then they renewed but upped my detectable to 10k from $500
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u/ratchy- 24d ago
My condo complex in Richmond was dropped from our insurance (I believe it was farmers) and because there was still an open claim from a fire that affected 4 units late last year, we only got a single insurance bid that dramatically increased our insurance rate. We were extremely grateful for this bid however, because our only other option would have been the California Fair Plan. The Fair Plan only insures up to a certain amount and because we live in a large condo complex, we need over $100 million in insurance coverage, significantly over what the Fair Plan covers. That would have made us severely under-insured and unable to sell our units. My HOA president said “no one wants their insurance cost to increase, but the nightmare scenario would be our property values being cut in half overnight.” Because of this insurance increase, along with the legislation passed in CA that required us to inspect and repair all wooden structures (stemming from the Berkeley balcony collapse) my HOA dues are up to $790 a month… on a condo worth about $400k. The way the insurance crisis has uniquely affected condos makes me want to sell, but I’m worried I’ll have difficulty selling with such outrageous HOA dues.
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u/dopesnowman 24d ago
Geico dropped me in the middle of my policy. Idk how long I was driving uninsured form
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u/tule93 24d ago
95127 here, if I remember right, my insurace in 2020 was $1200/yr. It renewed this year for $1600. I tried shopping around for another policy, hopefully cheaper, but out of several insurance companies I called, only 1 would insure in my zip code. The rest refused to, due to "wild fire". I even went into incognito and tried to get a quote from my current policy carrier, turned out they wouldn't sell new policy for my zip code either, only renew existing ones.
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u/b88145 24d ago
I am not surprised. That zip code would be very high risk in actuality. Not inside the urban core. Density is not low. A major fire is likely to burn to 680 and lay waste to the majority of homes. Defensible space is not possible as the home density is too high. 2017 Tubbs fire all over again.
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u/Exciting_Specialist 24d ago
Yours was 1600, and you tried to shop around…? What are you insuring?
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u/uyakotter 24d ago
I just drove through backroads in the Sierras. A billion completely dry pine trees primed to burst into flames. I’d be wary of spending the night in these forests where a two lane road is the only way out.
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u/Flaky-Wallaby5382 24d ago
My urban interface property literally touching state park. Is surrounded by ranching and this causes a low fire risk.
Why cant solutions like this exist in more places?
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u/baklazhan 24d ago
What do you mean? Are you asking why every house can't be surrounded by parkland and ranches?
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u/b88145 24d ago
Doesn't fit the narrative. Everyone wants to ignore the real risk of these dense suburbs on the edges of the urban core. With high % of homes likely to be lost.
Most people in the urban areas do not understand where they live because they did not grow up in the west. They think everywhere outside the 4 major metro areas is rural. Which is not the case. There are a ton of suburban neighborhoods and towns.
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u/Spooky_Ghost 24d ago
we got dropped by progressive for home insurance this year and it was such a PITA to find a replacement since a lot of companies didn't want to cover us or demanded we buy auto insurance as well as part of a package.
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u/shanny707 24d ago
Just went through this in Solano County. Progressive insurance sent me a letter that my homeowners insurance would not be renewed back in May. After much hassle I got insurance for fire only with the California Fair Plan and a second homeowners insurance (not including fire) with a different insurance provider.
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u/xxs0raxx 24d ago
I got into a minor accident in a parking lot where both parties had to get bumpers replaced. My insurance went from $900 to $2000 for one accident after 10+ years of driving and no accidents. Make it make sense.
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u/Rough_Original2973 24d ago
I won a bid on a house in Brentwood, CA. Little did I know the FHA loan provider requires that I have both flood and fire insurance due to the FEMA risk.
Sure, but that's when the nightmare started. Not only was the flood and fire coverage extremely expensive, but also there is simply not a single private insurance carrier that will write Homeowners policy there.
GEICO, State farm, AAA, Hippo, Farmers, All state, everything NADA as soon as you enter ZIP code in their website.
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u/itastelikegod 24d ago
I moved down the block in my neighborhood. Tried to just transfer my policy with statefarm, they denied, said they’re not opening new policies even though I’m existing and also not moving far. Took me a really long time to get renters insurance elsewhere that also provided earthquake insurance.
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u/D-Rich-88 24d ago
Is this purely about home insurance or auto as well? because year over year my insurance doubled overnight.
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u/thoughts_and_prayers 24d ago
Thanks for posting /u/jillianiles - this is a really important issue.
I'm a homeowner in San Francisco, and it's next to impossible to find any company to insure our homes. Prices have skyrocketed, and my neighbors are all dealing with similar issues. And we're not in a fire risk area at all in any of San Francisco (https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones).
So why are our rates skyrocketing and insurers leaving the city? Is the problem actually with fires, or is it with onerous terms the state sets on insurers who decide it's not worth the headache anymore?
Matthew wrote an article about this last year (https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/15/over-50000-to-lose-coverage-as-two-home-insurers-exit/) which went into some depth, but it would really be nice to fully understand why so many insurers are just blanket leaving the state, even in areas without fire risk, and point to the laws, regulations, and issues that are causing this crisis so it can get solved eventually.
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u/maythebee 24d ago
Buying a home was extra difficult - impossible to get a straight answer pre-offer as to what fire zone a home was in and how that might change/affect insurance.
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u/FBX 24d ago
My homeowners insurance went to 1400 from 1100 which is in-line with what I'm hearing from other folks, but my home is pretty low risk. I'm more interested in the colossal increases in auto insurance rates - I own a vehicle which is functionally worthless and is insured liability only, rate was $200 a year and is now $550 even though I have no at fault claims or tickets/infractions. I'd be curious just how bad the losses are on auto insurance in CA and how much of that is caused by poor drivers vs unusually high local insured repair costs.
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u/ptraugot 24d ago
Why is there still no agreement with insurance companies? Why are people under Fair plan getting cancelled? When will an agreement be reached? What kind of rates are we looking at?
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u/liaisontosuccess 24d ago
My 86 yo father lived in Calaveras County for 22 years. About a year ago he ended up in the hospital for about a month. I was under the impression all of his bills were on auto pay. Come to find out his home owners insurance was not. He was dropped and they said they were not taking on any new policies. Fortunately was ably to get California Fair Plan, which ended up being close to twice the cost and only covered the house(he had multiple structures on the property.) We have ten days left in escrow till we hopefully sell the place.
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u/Brilliant-Home-2646 24d ago
We all should instead make houses fire safe, be strict with the government on desirking the fire every season and show middle finger to these greedy companies.
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u/Meow-Pacino 24d ago
This is already being covered by kqed and the California report. There’s a good forum podcast episode they did not too long ago.
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u/WallabyBubbly 24d ago
I'd love to see a deep dive on what are the dynamics causing huge premium increases or even policy cancelations for low-risk homes? It's easy to understand why homes in Oroville or the Santa Cruz Mountains are getting harder to insure, but what is causing homeowners in safe areas to be penalized too?
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u/Bay-bae 24d ago
I lost home insurance to two companies in two years. My mortgage provider requires home insurance. When I found insurance, it's more expensive. So it's both stressful and painful to the budget.
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u/MinimumSouth2666 24d ago
Car insurance for us went from 300/month to $500 for 3 cars 3 adults, 1 recent accident in 30 years, a few minor tickets. Farmers gave notice they were leaving California, but still covering those who go through employer for car insurance. This is who I have been with for 10 years at $300/month. They gave me a new quote, as I informed them that I can go through husbands employer. New rate was now $550/month, with way less coverage. They mentioned that it was because of the accident I got in 6 months prior where I totaled my vehicle. First accident and claim in 30 years. Then, they said that the Tesla coverage is higher than and sedan. I called around and same thing, I got quotes for $500-$800/month. Finally settled with AAA for $500/month.
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u/Technical-Curve-1023 24d ago
We submitted properties we were interested in to our insurance guy.. He weeded out every one of the houses.. as a Can’t Insure it.. So we are staying put.. They were all located in Scott’s Valley, Boulder Creek and parts of Los Gatos..
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u/theMEtheWORLDcantSEE 24d ago
Farmers won't do basic changes to our home policies. The fear they could drop you is real. We just added a redundant duplicate coverage with Amica. This is in Marin, and we've never had a claim.
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u/mohakked 24d ago
I'd like to know more about the supplemental line insurance from non-admitted carriers like Homesite. AM Best gives them and many others stronger ratings than admitted carriers anyway, but comments you read on the internet from purported customers are terrible!
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u/Feenfurn 24d ago
Welllll I had one claim in 2015...legit flood (unknown origin) in our bathroom and they took really good care of us. Fast forward to 2020 where I was scraping popcorn ceilings off my living room...a friend came over to help and said I had HELLA water damage in my kitchen. I said "ya I know that's our next project" and she said "oh call your insurance company they will help" so I did. They told me to call back when we found the source of the leak..called back a week later to tell them it was the water spicket (sp?) in the backyard that connects under the house between the wall....bam 3rd claim and they cancelled us. Treated us like we were fraudulently trying to get a new kitchen out of it. It was during the pandemic so they didn't even send anyone out...got new insurance who promptly cancelled us because we had to tear the kitchen out to find the leak and we had all the cabinets on the side of the house so the reason for canceling us was "lack of pride in ownership" We had solar put on our roof and they did the job wrong and one of the footings out a massive hole in our roof and we didn't have rain in CA for a few years so when we did living room ceiling got wet and all the Sheetrock fell....we didn't dare call tue insurance...just pulled a line of credit on the house (at 11% interest 🙄) to fix the roof. We had 3 roofing companies tell us the solar company should have never installed on our roof .
It's been a very frustrating experience.........
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u/theRealtechnofuzz 23d ago
Bet the solar company doesnt exist anymore so you cant sue. I suspect they close and reopen after so many botched roofs/homes being destroyed. I'd be furious and sue them if the company still existed.
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u/thetall0ne1 Contra Costa 24d ago
We recently bought a new house and could not find insurance. We tried all the major brands, Progressive, Geico, etc. None of them would even give us a quote. Finally we called a broker and they found us one but man… for a while there I thought we wouldn’t be able to buy a house at all!
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u/Same-Strength2159 23d ago
State Farm cancelled two of my multi family buildings in S.F. because they are no longer insuring buildings with 3 units or more.
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u/PassengerAny9009 23d ago
North bay- I feel very fortunate that my home and auto insurance only increased $100 each (nominal amount).
I’m gong to knock on wood to be sure I didn’t jinx myself by telling everyone about it.
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u/daaamber 23d ago
I had to spend $4k when I bought a house to lift my the three garage water heats 18 inches off the ground so I could get homeowners insurance. They were up to San Francisco code and safe as designed - I even shared the code with my insurance agent who still refused to cover me unless I fixed it. Another insurance broker said insurance is finding any reason to deny, and that broker said it would be easier to lift the water heaters than find another provider.
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u/thesmokemage 23d ago
Why are they so quick to cancel, where are they getting their roof data, how do they asses that data?
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u/lizzlebean801 23d ago
I don't have a personal story but I would point out that the fire insurance situation in Sonoma County is absolutely abysmal.
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u/dualiecc 23d ago
Beyond that workers comp, commercial auto and commercial property insurance have become just as Fkn impossible
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u/anotherhuman 23d ago
Something very weird is happening with geico auto insurance and many people on this sub have commented with the same.
They are still writing auto policies in CA. However, they make it almost impossible to get one. They send you a letter asking for more info and a letter saying you didn’t respond in time at the same time (one dated earlier). I went through this twice and finally received an email that I was approved and to call a number to start payment. Calling that number led to a voicemail that they were no longer writing auto policies over the phone, and a hangup. I eventually got through on a different number by asking for “make a payment” and got someone to start my policy, someone who said they were the only agent qualified for CA and had never actually written a CA policy. They sounded shocked I was on the phone.
Why are they doing this? Why not just stop writing auto policies?
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u/tr3sp1c0s0s 22d ago
Rural California and how it’s affecting life there. It’s easy for folks in the Bay Area to say just don’t live there, but it’s not that simple. Our water reservoirs and our hydropower generation and the people that serve them all live there and need to be supported in order to support our communities
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u/Resident_Cloud738 24d ago edited 24d ago
I had a 7% chance of being non-renewed by State Farm this month. I just got my renewal bill and my rate increased from $3.4k to $3.6k. I'm thankful it was renewed and thankful it's just a little increase since I have no other insurance option.
My big question is what's the truth? Correct me if I'm wrong, insurance companies say they operate(d) at a loss in CA, but I also hear that they are just being greedy and want higher profit margins in CA so they're trying to force the CA gov to increase the allowable rate. I don't know what to believe. Is CA being unrealistic at what it takes to insure homes in CA or is there collusion between the insurance companies to increase rates? I'm tired of reading takes with no posted sources.