Catastrophe-Prone California May Adopt New Insurance Rate Model

California is considering doing what every other state has done and permit using catastrophic modeling in insurance rate setting to address climate change and the seemingly never-ending series of very expensive disasters.

Speakers at a joint legislative hearing in Sacramento on Wednesday offered similar explanations for what’s going on with insurance companies dropping property owners from policies, withdrawing writing new policies, and policyholders getting stratospheric quotes for pricing. The hearing was prompted by State Farm, the largest underwriter of property and casualty insurance in California, announcing May 26 that it would stop writing new property policies in the state, effective ...