It's because California pushes their FAIR plan which is expensive and has terrible coverage. It's a corrupt and unethical solution for the state to recoup its budget deficit.
Do you have evidence that they make money on their plan? My impression is that insurance of last resort isn’t cheap to provide, they’re only getting the people that were too high risk to qualify for a cheaper commercial plan.
No, only my anecdote. The state is offering significantly reduced coverage for more than double the cost of previous coverage. Getting the state plan still requires you to get additional private coverage in order to satisfy mortgage insurance requirements. I think it would be impossible for a layman to just give you "evidence" that will fit whatever arbitrary checkbox is formally needed. I cannot fathom a way the state isn't profiting here and both the state and insurance companies are exposing homeowners to incredible burdens.
Now you frame this like I am too high risk or people in this capacity are too high risk, but that is the whole problem. Insurance cos are inconsistently making these determinations and the state's governance is directly responsible for the lack of regulation and enforcement. Nothing in my area has changed, but the insurance company has enacted the equivalent of ex post facto evaluation due to the state of CA. As example, my roof in great condition, passed inspection when purchase property a few years ago. I don't have certificates or invoices for repairs done to it in the 50 years of my home's life because I've only owned the property for a few years. The insurance company canceled my insurance stating I refused to provide such an invoice. They also claimed I'm now in a dangerous fire zone (I'm not) which I wasn't a year ago. They also claimed to need invoice of repairs for my plumbing, which again, is in wonderful condition. They stated simply providing inspection receipts wouldn't cut it and expensive certificates were needed. Anyways, I doubt you will read this but it's ridiculous and I'm not the only one in this state going through it.
I did read it, thanks for laying out your experience.
The evidence I’d look for is something like their revenue vs payout over maybe the last 5 years?
I think a lot of this stuff can be very unintuitive, because we look around, and everything seems fine, and nothing seems to have changed, but they’re operating at a bulk statistical level, and their models revised on recent trends are probably telling them that they can’t profitably insure you for the amounts they’re allowed to charge. Some of that is that labor to rebuild/replacement cost has gotten much more expensive (we see that in our insurance rate changes despite being in an area with very little catastrophic risk).
And CA politicians’ response is probably some crowd pleasing but ultimately harmful “you can’t profiteer off our people, you’re not allowed to raise rates more than 3%” or something. So the only winning move becomes not to play except in the areas where you can make that work.
It does sound like they were just trying to find a way that they could cancel your policy without getting in trouble with the state insurance commission, though I don’t know enough about insurance to say if/why they’d need to.
They’re losing money on it actually but you missed the obvious. Liberals want everything privatized to remove profit incentive. That’s the reason they’re creating a uncompetitive environment, to kill business. For further proof, see the recent minimum wage increase.
