Two more insurers are pulling out of California’s troubled homeowners insurance market, straining a marketplace that already has seen the pullback of several other companies that have cited increase costs related to wildfire risks.
Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co. submitted filings to the California Department of Insurance stating they will not renew 12,556 homeowners policies with a premium value of $11.3 million starting July 1. Also not being renewed are 1,624 dwelling fire and liability policies with a premium value of $1.7 million typically sold to owners of rental properties, as well as personal umbrella coverage.
The companies, subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Tokio Marine Holdings, are completely exiting the homeowners marketplace. Several major insurers, meanwhile, including State Farm, Farmers and Allstate, have limited their exposure in California by cutting back on the number of new policies they issue or tightening underwriting standards. State Farm, for example, announced in March it would not renew 72,000 policies.
Just means any time something big happens to a poor person, they lose their house.
If you live near the gulf - close enough for hurricanes to destroy a house you either need to build to withstand hurricanes (an engineering problem - I don’t know how feasible it is) at greater cost; or you need to build cheap planning on rebuilding from scratch every few years.
Florida updates their building code roughly every 3 years, and has specific “Hurricane resistant” measures.
Do newer homes that have higher hurricane resistance get lower homeowners insurance premiums?