Thread regarding Allstate Corp. layoffs

Actually, I like epidemy better. Sounds like it's an out of control epidemic. Which is an accurate description of Allstate's bad decisions.

yeah because Prop 103 (essentially communism) really works. eye roll

correction.... This company is the "epitome" of bad decision making. Im glad you read the post close enough to pick up on that one mistake though.

Cheers!

Line 6 - look how "epitome" is spelled....ignorant !!

@ofi+1oF0V11w.. seriously?? you think deregulating another corrupt industry like insurance is the answer? Yea, because that worked out so well for the energy companies like Enron in the 90s and the banking industry up until 2008, not to mention your whole premise is that these companies are honorable and not pi----g away money on their own bonuses and pet projects... And you're saying this on an Allstate layoff site? This company is the epidemy of bad decision making... and these sociopathic mo--ns that make the lame brain decisions that they do, has nothing to do with government regulations that shield us little peasants from being taxed out of financial existence. You probably are on the repeal prop 13 property tax BS too. You people care nothing about the economy or the consumer. The problem is thinking like yours. There are reasons why insurance is so expensive, and we are getting ki-led financially and there is a lot government can start doing to fix that, but repealing checks and balances is just a stupid and irresponsible lazy attempt at covering up the real issues. Here is what the prop says. And just like prop 13 in the 70s has saved millions in this State from losing their homes, prop 103 has allowed the us lowly paid corp wage slaves able to afford to drive on the roads we pay taxes on to build and maintain.

Proposition 103, passed by California voters in November 1988, requires the "prior approval" of California's Department of Insurance before insurance companies can implement property and casualty insurance rates. The ballot measure also required each insurer to "roll back" its rates 20 percent. Prior to Proposition 103, automobile, property and casualty insurance rates were set by insurance companies without approval by the Insurance Commissioner.

Your post is a weak and see through attempt at corporate lobbying to free up another space for the sc-m vultures to rip off the taxpayers... again.

California is just the beginning. Washington and Colorado just off the top of my head are in the same general condition in terms of property business and the need for limitations combined with higher rates for high risk such as wildfire combined with state insurance guidelines.

San Francisco might not be the only California colossus in a so-called “doom loop.” The property and casualty insurance market is experiencing a crisis of its own, and the consequences are dire for the entire state economy.

Here’s one recent example. In August, California-based Farmers Insurance laid off 2,400 people, about 11-percent of its workforce. Not coincidentally, Farmers announced in July that it would limit its exposure to the California homeowner’s insurance market, shortly after State Farm and Allstate announced they would no longer be writing new homeowner’s policies in the state.

These companies don’t see California’s regulatory environment, forest management and wildfire risks, and sky-high building costs as a winning formula for their businesses right now. They are acting accordingly.

California government is certainly a hardy plant. It grows in all conditions and climates, through recessions, booms, busts, month after month, year after year, but the private sector isn’t immune to economic circumstances. If Farmers, Allstate, and State Farm are writing fewer policies, they will need fewer staff. A California slow to recover from its own Covid policies needs more jobs, not fewer.

These layoffs are only part of the story. Expect to see real estate deals fall apart over fire insurance costs. Expect to see businesses closing shop when they can’t get or can’t afford insurance in our state. Expect to see homeowners, especially seniors with paid-off homes but modest incomes, “going bare” on their homes and carrying no property insurance, exposing themselves and their heirs to massive financial risk. Insurance lubricates the economy and when it stops working the economy stops working.

There are some solutions, if the legislature or even the current Department of Insurance will act on them. They will involve some short-term pain to consumers, but they offer a path back to a robust market where companies are entering the market, not leaving it, and hiring employees, not laying them off.

It starts with repealing Proposition 103, the 1988 initiative governing property insurance in California.

Its rules are strangling the market. We don’t need insurance companies begging for rate increases from the Insurance Commissioner, which can take years. We need agile companies that can price risk in the best and timeliest manner to meet consumer needs.

A repeal would also free up insurance companies to use whatever information they can to set their rates. They can’t be tethered exclusively to the past. Past data is important but future catastrophe modeling is critical for companies to comfortably price what they consider the real, current cost of doing business in California.

If insurers set their own rates, it would free the Department of Insurance to go after bad actors and enforce penalties for unlawful and unfair practices, and it could do an even better job in its important work examining insurers for financial health, but it shouldn’t act as a rate gatekeeper any longer. It’s contributing to the exodus of insurers in the state and hurting, not helping, consumers as Prop. 103 intended.

Just as the first pullbacks in insurance coverage were indicators of future, additional pullbacks, the Farmers job cuts will not be the last. They indicate an unhealthy insurance market in California, fewer premium dollars, less profit, and more layoffs in the entire industry.

Everyone and everything are fleeing California as it becomes more unlivable, unaffordable, and now, uninsurable.

But it’s within our power to reform our insurance markets. We can’t be afraid to pivot when laws prove failures, and we shouldn’t be defeated by rules of our own making. More insurers equal more competition and more choice for consumers. That is how to end the doom loop and is the ultimate solution to the California insurance crisis.