Cyrus Dugger

State Farm Doesn’t Pay Up Promptly & When Forced to Pay…..Just Leaves

State Farm: No New Policies in Miss. By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 14, 6:01 PM ET Mississippi’s largest homeowner insurer said Wednesday it has had enough of the “untenable” legal and political climate and is suspending writing new homeowners and commercial policies in a state still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. A spokesman for State Farm Insurance Cos. said the decision was due in part to the wave of litigation the company has encountered since the Aug. 29, 2005, storm. Mississippi is the latest state along the hurricane-vulnerable Gulf Coast to at least temporarily lose an insurer. …………….

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood sharply criticized the decision, saying State Farm had indicated in the past it would remain in Mississippi and continue to write homeowner policies. Hood said it was State Farm and not Mississippi that had created the problem by refusing to pay claims and dragging out the process.
“If they paid what they owed in the first place, there never would have been a lawsuit filed,” Hood said.
He said the insurer was trying to “nickel and dime” policyholders on the coast after making “$3.9 billion in the most catastrophic year in history.” (link)

Posted at 3:38 PM, Feb 15, 2007 in Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)