Farmers Insurance retracts non-renewal notices in Georgia

Farmers Insurance has rescinded several thousand non-renewal notices sent to Georgia homeowners.

The non-renewals were initially scheduled to go into effect in August, according to a statement from Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire.

Weston Burleson, director of communications and legislative affairs for the commissioner’s office, told Digital Insurance that “none of the non-renewals would have gone into effect until at least August 1, and they have all been rescinded.”

“We have decided not to move forward with our plan to non-renew a limited number of homeowners policies with older roofs. We have begun to notify affected customers of this decision,” said Luis Sahagun, director of external communications for Farmers.

Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire

“It was brought to our attention this week that Farmers Insurance had alerted their customers that they would be non-renewing any homeowner policies on homes with roofs over 15 years old in blatant violation of Georgia law,” said Commissioner John F. King. “My office immediately took action, ordering Farmers to reverse course and rescind these scheduled non-renewals. I am extremely disappointed with the actions of Farmers and am contemplating further disciplinary actions at this time.”

Under Georgia state law, insurers are only allowed to change their underwriting guidelines for new properties and cannot non-renew existing customers under new guidelines.

“Our office has a broad range of actions we can take when an insurer violates state law,” Burleson said. “These can range from a monetary penalty to pulling their license to do business in the state.”

This is the latest in a series of measures taken by Farmers Insurance to reduce costs and overall risk. Farmers also announced earlier this month that it would limit new homeowners insurance policies in California and would stop offering new home, auto and umbrella policies in Florida.

“This is the first time we’ve come across an insurer trying to make a broad change to underwriting guidelines for a number of existing policyholders at once,” Burleson said.

Multiple other insurers have also been announcing non-renewals and leaving high-risk markets this summer in the face of extreme weather events from wildfires in California to flooding in Vermont.