State farm is looking for an urgent increase in California’s rate after fires

State Farm, the largest homeowner’s insurance company in California, asked Monday State Insurance Regulators to Press Pressing to approve an average increase in 22 percent, a worrying sign of an already fragile insurance market in a disaster-out-of-the-art state.

In recent years, several Californians have struggled to secure affordable homeowners’ insurance, as companies have raised their rates or pulled out of the market completely as fires and other disasters have become more destructive. Last month’s burn in the Los Angeles region, which destroyed 12,000 homes, has only increased these concerns as people have weighed whether to rebuild.

State Farm has received more than 8,700 Los Angeles fires alone and paid more than $ 1 billion to customers, according to the company. The insurance company expects to pay significantly more and fires will be the most expensive in the state’s farm history, says the company.

State Farm General, which secures more than a million homeowners in California, is driven separately from affiliated companies that provide car and life coverage. The company asked state regulators to approve the rate increases on renewals from May.

“Insurance will cost more to California customers in the future because the risk is greater in California,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “We need to correctly match the price to risk. It is fundamental to how insurance works. “

The insurance commissioner’s office said it would undergo the state yard’s interest rate increase application. The company already had three pending rate increases of archives for the department.

“The State Farm General’s rate archives raise serious questions about its financial condition,” said Gabriel Sanchez, a spokesman for the insurance commissioner, in an E email. “To protect millions of California’s consumers and the integrity of our homeowner insurance market, the department will respond with urgent and transparency.”

State Farm has steadily tried to reduce its economic exposure in California as disasters have become more expensive and frequent in the state. Last year, State Farm announced that it would not renew 30,000 homeowners’ policy. In the previous year, the company announced that it would not write any new policies in California.

Reductions and non -unnotices in California have pushed an increasing number of inhabitants to a special plan created by state lawmakers in 1968 to cover people who cannot get standard housing insurance for various reasons. The number of houses on the program, California’s fair plan, doubled from 2020 to 2024.