Hurricane season leaves consumers exposed

updated 2:14 p.m. ET May 31, 2009

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - As the 2009 hurricane season arrives, many homeowners are finding insurance is either more expensive, or harder to get.

Homeowners from New York to Florida and in the Gulf Coast region are again seeing premiums rise and coverage change. And more are being dropped completely by their carriers as insurers try to limit their exposure in high-risk areas.

"They just don't like being in the business ... too much risk," said Scott Hall of Market Street Advisers, a financial advisory firm in Wilmington, N.C.

Homeowners' insurance premiums are up about 3 percent nationwide and probably more in some coastal areas where the potential for damage is greater, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based industry group. The hurricane season starts Monday and runs until Nov. 30.

Several factors are affecting premiums and coverage, including the $26 billion insurers paid out on catastrophic losses last year and the impact of financial market turmoil on the companies' earnings. Changes in state regulations are also driving some premiums higher.

Insurers hiking rates after big losses
Late last year, Allstate Corp. and State Farm Insurance Cos., two of the nation's top home and auto insurers, raised premiums in states including Texas, saying the increase was needed to offset a rising number of claims. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike hit the U.S. in September.

Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate also implemented policy changes that raised deductibles and stopped offering coverage in high-risk coastal areas including downstate New York.

"We continually review all those items and make the necessary adjustments," said Allstate spokesman Mike Siemienas.

Meanwhile, State Farm Florida, a subsidiary of the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer, is trying to pull out of the Florida market after the state denied the company's request for a 47 percent rate hike. Company officials have said they need the increase to remain financially viable. Discussions with regulators are continuing.

Shawna Ackerman, who co-chairs the American Academy of Actuaries' property and casualty extreme events committee, said she has not heard of any mass non-renewals or existing policy changes that are in the works for 2009. But insurers are continuing a process that began after they paid out $23.7 billion in claims — a number adjusted for inflation as of 2008 — on Hurricane Andrew in 1992, trying to limit their exposure, or vulnerability to losses, in coastal areas.

Hurricanes Ivan in 2004 and Katrina in 2005 forced several to pull back further, with many companies re-evaluating policy coverages and raising rates. Ivan caused more than $8.1 billion in losses after adjusting for inflation, while Katrina was the most costly, with losses now calculated at $45.2 billion, according to Insurance Information Institute data.

"Over the last five years, where we've seen record catastrophe losses in coastal areas — Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas — the increases in (premiums in) those areas have outstripped what we have seen nationally," said Bob Hartwig, the Insurance Information Institute's president.

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