This is a kind of wacky story from the St. Petersburg Times about a family in St Pete who literally built a fortress made of steel and concrete that could withstand almost any hurricane that hit Florida. Despite that, State Farm dropped their coverage. Of course, State Farm claims it was solely due to a random reduction in the number of policies that they lost coverage. We get the question a lot; what happened to State Farm? I thought they left? Well, in short, State Farm did threaten to leave Florida but since having State Farm in the state is better than not having State Farm here, the State of Florida later allowed State Farm the ability to raise premiums and in return State Farm is allowed to drop a large chunk of its policies. So State Farm is here for now with higher premiums and less insureds but, ultimately this was a good move for the State of Florida and State Farm.
Overall, State Farm adds a great deal of value to the Florida insurance market, and tends to handle their claims better than most of the companies providing sinkhole coverage. At the same time, while it is good that State Farm is staying, the State of Florida must do more to draw other, quality insurance companies into the State. Several of the companies Charlie Crist bragged he brought into the State have already gone out of business, and some have even been sanctioned by the State for a lack of proper funding.
Read our tips on filling out a sinkhole claim.
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