BOOM: Farmers Insurance cancelling more than 1,300 homeowners’ policies in OKLAHOMA over wildfire risks
kxii.com
By Garrett Stringfellow
Okla. (KXII) - In November, Farmers Insurance will be canceling home insurance for roughly 1,300 homeowners in eastern Oklahoma.
“Farmers is making a move not just in Oklahoma, but nationally to try to reduce their risk specific to wildfire,” Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready said.
It’s unclear how many, if any, of those homes are in Texoma but Mulready said that there should be plenty of options for homeowners losing coverage.
“We have a lot of competition out there,” he said. “We currently have 113 insurance companies that have active homeowner’s policies in place in Oklahoma.”
The move from Farmers is the latest in a long line of insurance companies across the nation pulling coverage in states like Florida, California, and Texas due to concerns about climate change and natural disasters.
Especially this year, Oklahoma is no stranger to severe weather.
“We had 103 tornadoes this past year, two EF-4 tornadoes,” Mulready said. “First time we’ve had two EF-4 tornadoes in a year since 2011.”
Both homeowners and insurers are feeling the effects.
“What did you pay out in claims?” Mulready said. “Our top 20 homeowner companies, that number was 105%. For every $100 they took in, they paid out $105 in claims.”
However, Mulready said there’s a difference between the states losing the most coverage and Oklahoma.
“They had areas of their state that no insurance company would write a homeowner’s policy,” he said. “We don’t have that in Oklahoma.”
Even as profitability becomes more difficult, he says local homeowners shouldn’t have any problems finding coverage any time soon.
“We do have an affordability issue, I’ll give you that,” Mulready said. “We’re all wrestling with that, but we don’t have an availability issue.” |
