Leaving California: insurer withdrawal notifications double

Insurers headed for the exits in California at an accelerating pace in 2022, with 45 carriers notifying regulators of discontinuations and withdrawals across a broadening slate of products, a newly released California regulator report indicated.

The 45 carrier tally is up from a mere 19 in 2021 and 9 in 2020 when withdrawals from agribusiness products by Allianz units accounted for five of the nine notifications, calculations from the dataset show.

An array of homeowners policies (named homeowners, dwelling, residential or personal umbrella) were included in one third or 15 of the 2022 notifications. Such policies had been present in 9 of the 19 2021 notifications and one from 2020 list, the data indicated.

The list of 2022 homeowner notifications included major moves by units of AIG, QBE, Farmers Insurance Group, Berkshire Hathaway, Kemper and others.

AIG declared withdrawal from six private client personal lines including for homeowners, earthquake flood, excess liability and more.

Three units of the Farmers Insurance Group withdrew from dwelling fire and homeowners products.

Berkshire Hathaway surplus writer Mount Vernon discontinued offering personal umbrella policies in California after a partial withdrawal the prior year.

QBE decided to non-renew policies in the Arrowhead residential earthquake insurance program, but those policies will be transferred to a replacement carrier.

Also on the list of 2022 departure notifications: units of IAT Reinsurance, Oregon Mutual, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, two Kemper units and the Golden Bear Insurance Company.

The major move in 2021 came from the AXA Insurance group plus announcements from Aegis group and a Munich Re unit's landlord program.

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.