Earl Ofari Hutchinson
I’m Earl Ofari Hutchinson. I’m Standing in front of State Farm Insurance, one of their prime offices in South LA. State Farm Insurance is an insurance company that does three things. Number one, they red-line by a different name in South LA. Black and Hispanic home owner homeowners, and we’ve seen this with the wildfires, are underinsured, uninsured, but primarily uninsured. Why? Because State Farm and other insurers, but especially State Farm, because they write more policies in California homeowners’ policies than any other insurance company. They use every ploy and dodge to deny homeowners color insurance. So the result, you have many, literally tens of thousands of homeowners in South LA that have no insurance. We saw in West Altadena, underinsured and uninsured homeowners, catastrophic losses. Who’s going to pay? The second thing is greed, greed, greed. State Farm, despite the fact that they do not insure many, they red-line, use zip codes, and have all kinds of ploys and dodgers not to write policies, or charge exorbitant prices for policies. But they also have done their demand in a rate increase. They stop writing policies in many areas, and we found that out with the wildfires.
[00:01:40.12] – Speaker 1
Then the gall and the nerve to come before the State Insurance Commission and demand a 22% rate up. The rationale is we have to pay all these billions out, so therefore we’re losing money. Baloney. Baloney. The Commissioner denied it. State Farm is not going to go away. They’re going to keep pressing and pressing, and to get their rate increase, unfortunately. We come back now to South LA or West Elta Dina. Any area, predominantly black and/or Hispanic, you find a larger percentage, far larger percentage of those that do not have insurance because of State Fund. State Fund has been, as you can see here, they’ve been under fire for a long time, State Farm. What’s happened is, discrimination against lawsuits against them. Many discrimination lawsuits, multimillion dollar discrimination lawsuits. Why? Because they won’t write policies or exorbit in prices on the policies in primarily lower income, black and Hispanic areas We see that in South LA. So State Farm, justifiably has been under fire. We are putting them under fire, holding their feet to the fire and demanding that State Farm write fair and equitable the insurance policies in South LA. That’s the first thing. When they write policies, don’t come up with every Dodge employee to deny claims.
[00:03:08.19] – Speaker 1
We’re seeing some of that now in West Altadena. All of the tactics that they use, Insurers, they won’t insure. Agents, they won’t write in certain areas, they overprice, or they deny claims when they come up. All of these things are taking a toll. They lead the blight and deterioration in neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, many homeowners that don’t have insurance, when they face a catastrophic loss, what they do, they walk away. They abandon. They can’t pay. They can’t keep up with the cost. As a result of that, it’s once again a vicious cycle that continues to go into erosion, the blighting, and deterioration. Deterioration, greatly, I might add, of a neighborhood. South LA has been victimized time and time again by policies and practices discriminatory of a state farm and many other insurers, too. The demand is fair and equitable pricing and policies. In fact, write policies, no under insurance, timely paying of claims, and no red-lining. That is by a zip code. Look at the zip code and say, predominantly black, predominantly Hispanic, predominantly low income or and lower income. Therefore, no, we’re not going to write insurance. They have a million ways to come at it and deny.
[00:04:37.12] – Speaker 1
Once again, the call, State Farm. Fair, equitable, affordable, accessible insurance in South LA for black and Hispanic homeowners and lower income that you’ve denied, denied, denied at the expense of their and our community. I’m Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Once again, thanks for joining me. President, Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable.