The largest homeowners insurer in Florida is canceling the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season.
The company, State Farm Florida, began sending out cancellation notices this week to nearly a fifth of its 714,000 customers, most of them in the state’s hurricane-prone coastal regions.
A spokesman for State Farm said the decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators.
Imagine that! Can't get a fucking rate hike to line your pockets, so just cancel the poor bastards' insurance.
And speaking about insurance, how about this one:
According to a study by a pro-health reform group published Thursday, the nation's largest five health insurance companies posted a 56 percent gain in 2009 profits over 2008. The insurers including Wellpoint, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Aetna and Humana, which cover the majority of Americans with insurance.
And even with THAT in mind, BC/BS decides to ramp up the rates in California a whopping 39%! According to the New York Times:
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Consumers in at least four states who buy their own health insurance are getting hit with premium increases of 15 percent or more -- and people in other states could see the same thing.
Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint Inc., has been under fire for a week from regulators and politicians for notifying some of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California that it plans to raise rates by up to 39 percent March 1.
All the reports from the economists that have studied this industry have already indicated that these increases over the past several years, have not gone into health care, but to profits that are distributed to shareholders and pay CEO's. So, essentially, the rate hikes don't give the insured more insurance, it gives the insurance company more profit.
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