Legal News

Insurance giant State Farm said it's had enough.  The state's biggest private homeowners insurer, in a move sure to have hundreds of thousands of Florida residents scrambling for a way to cover their homes, said Tuesday that it is pulling out of Florida's rocky homeowners insurance market over the next two years.   The announcement caught State Farm's 1.2 million policyholders, including 933,000 home and condo owners, by surprise - and in a tough spot... For many of State Farm's policyholders, that means they'll probably be absorbed into state-sponsored Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and pay more in premiums anyway. State Farm, which stopped writing new homeowners policies in Florida last year, said it was left with little choice but to abandon the property line after state Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty made a final decision on Jan. 12 to reject its rate-hike plan. State Farm had first asked for a 47.1 percent premium rate increase in July, but in December upped its request to 67 percent..."They probably charge about the highest rates in the state anyway,"' Gov. Charlie Crist said. "I think Floridians will be much better off without them..."   Several dozen property insurers have entered the Florida market in the past three years