Latest news with #homeownersInsurance
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Porch Group Repurchases Additional $8.9m Unsecured 2026 Notes for $8.5m of Cash
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 2, 2025-- Porch Group, Inc. ('Porch Group,' 'Porch' or 'the Company') (NASDAQ: PRCH), a new kind of homeowners insurance company, today announced the repurchase of an additional $8.9 million of its 0.75% Senior Unsecured Convertible Notes due September 2026 ('2026 Notes'). As previously disclosed, the board of directors has authorized management to repurchase the remaining $29 million of 2026 Notes in cash in the open market or through privately negotiated transactions. On May 29, 2025, the Company repurchased $8.89 million of 2026 Notes for approximately $8.46 million of cash, or 95% of par, in a privately negotiated transaction. The remaining $21 million of 2026 Notes is expected to be retired using balance sheet cash. This press release shall not constitute an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell the 2026 Notes, or any other securities, and will not constitute an offer, solicitation or purchase in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or purchase would be unlawful. About Porch Group Porch Group, Inc. is a new kind of homeowners insurance company. Porch's strategy to win in homeowners insurance is to deploy leading vertical software solutions in select home-related industries, provide the best services for homebuyers including important moving services, leverage unique data for advantaged underwriting, and provide more protection for policyholders. To learn more about Porch, visit Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release may be considered 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the 'safe harbor' provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Porch Group's future financial or operating performance. For example, statements regarding the expected repurchase of additional 2026 Notes with balance sheet cash and achievement of future leverage targets or goals, and other statements herein of management's beliefs, intentions or goals, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as 'may,' 'should,' 'expect,' 'intend,' 'will,' 'estimate,' 'anticipate,' 'believe,' 'predict,' 'potential,' 'target,' or 'continue,' or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Porch and its management at the time they are made, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties described in the 'Risk Factors' section of Porch's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'SEC'), all of which are available on the SEC's website at Nothing in this release should be regarded as a representation by any person that the forward-looking statements set forth herein will be achieved or that any of the contemplated results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, the forward-looking statements in this release do not reflect the potential impact of any divestitures, mergers, acquisitions, or other business combinations that have not been completed as of the date of this release. Porch Group does not undertake any duty to update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of changed circumstances, new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. View source version on CONTACT: Investor Relations Contact: [email protected] KEYWORD: WASHINGTON UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY INSURANCE DATA MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TECHNOLOGY APPS/APPLICATIONS RESIDENTIAL BUILDING & REAL ESTATE SOURCE: Porch Group, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 06/02/2025 09:00 AM/DISC: 06/02/2025 08:59 AM
CBS News
6 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
KCAL Insurance Week: We've Got You Covered
From June 2 to June 6, KCAL News is focusing on helping Californians wade through the ever-evolving landscape of homeowner's and renter's insurance, highlighting a number of helpful tips from experts who can help people answer questions on their insurance needs. Throughout the week, Julie Watts and Kristine Lazar will introduce a number of stories that highlight how Californians were impacted by the industry's changes, what they did to solve those problems and how CBS News helped. For extensive coverage of our entire coverage, visit the Insurance Takeover Headquarters. The week-long Insurance Takeover is the latest initiative from KCAL Cares, which looks to help people as they adjust to life in the wake of the devastating wildfires in January. Phone bank On Tuesday, June 3, KCAL News is hosting a phone bank from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., where people can call and speak with experts about their questions or concerns they have regarding their own insurance. Town hall On Thursday, June 5, Pat Harvey will host a panel of experts and consumer advocates on KCAL News and CBS News Los Angeles from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., where they will discuss the ongoing changes in the insurance industry and how residents can best adapt. Do you have a story or concern? We want to hear from you. Feel free to share any of your own insurance-related stories or concerns as we continue our Insurance Takeover. Please fill out the form below, and we may read your question or experience on air.
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Resource guides and links for homeowners and renters
Understanding homeowner's and renter's insurance can be daunting, with more questions than answers. KCAL News is here to help provide resources to help answer those questions. It is all apart of KCAL Insurance Week: We've Got You Covered. Below is a list of organizations and agencies that focus on insurance and consumer rights. United Policyholders United Policyholders is a nonprofit whose mission is to be provide trustworthy and useful information for consumers of all types of insurance across the country. The organization doesn't sell insurance or take money from insurance companies. United Policyholders aims to help guide people buying insurance and navigating claims. United Policyholders Contact by mail: 917 Irving Street, Suite 4, San Francisco, CA 94122 Email: info@ After the Fire USA After the Fire USA was created following a devastating wildfire in Northern California in 2017 to address the national needs of wildfire victims. The organization says it works in two ways: as a nonprofit and a consulting arm to help stabilize the nonprofit wing financially. Since November 2018, After the Fire USA has focused on organizing people to problem solve, advocate, and help communities recently impacted by fires find a path to recovery. The organization also mentors leaders in wildfire affected areas with design and recovery efforts. California Department of Insurance The California Department of Insurance is part of a national system of state-based insurance regulation, with consumer protection being a core mission. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara currently leads the department. The agency functions include overseeing insurance solvency, licensing agents and brokers, conducting market conduct reviews, handling consumer complaint and investigating and prosecuting insurance fraud.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
California Approves 17 Percent Rate Increase for State Farm
State Farm will be allowed to temporarily charge an extra 17 percent for homeowners' insurance policies in California, after the state gave the company permission, in the wake of the catastrophic fires. The insurer will be allowed to charge the higher rate at least until a hearing later this year, the state announced on Tuesday. The insurance giant already received a 20 percent rate increase last year, a move that a consumer watchdog group, as well as homeowners struggling to be paid after their homes were destroyed in January in the Los Angeles fires, criticized as unfair and unfounded. State Farm requested the emergency rate increase in February, the month after fires ripped through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of Los Angeles, razing over 16,000 homes and structures. The company — which insures one out of every five homes in California or roughly 1 million homeowner customers — had requested even more: a nearly 22 percent rate increase on homeowners' policies, citing a 'dire situation.' California, like other states hit by natural disasters, has faced threats from major insurers: Raise rates, or we leave the state, said Carmen Balber, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, which led the effort to oppose the rate increase in hearings this spring. 'The commissioner has shown a tendency to roll over in the face of insurer threats to leave,' Ms. Balber said. The increase 'adds insult to injury' at a time when many homeowners insured by State Farm have reported delays or attempts by State Farm to lowball claims following the fires earlier this year, she added. In a statement, Ricardo Lara, the state's insurance commissioner, presented the rate increase as a difficult compromise for consumers. 'Let me be clear: We are in a statewide insurance crisis affecting millions of Californians,' he said. 'Taking this on requires tough decisions.' An administrative judge inside the California Department of Insurance approved the interim rate increase, following a hearing in April in which lawyers for Consumer Watchdog repeatedly asked State Farm to open its books and show why it needed such a large infusion of cash. According to Ms. Balber, the insurer refused to provide paperwork corroborating the insurer's dire financial straits. Meanwhile, the consumer group's own actuaries prepared a simulation of the State Farm General Insurance Company's earnings from premiums and projected losses from recent wildfires. The actuaries concluded both that State Farm had exaggerated the financial strain and that the rate increase was not justified, Ms. Balber said. The interim rates go into effect on June 1. There is a chance that the rates can be challenged again at a hearing this fall, when the question of whether or not State Farm's California offshoot is financially healthy will be addressed, Ms. Balber said. According to California's insurance commissioner, this later hearing will be when State Farm will be required 'to justify its financial condition and detail its recovery plan.' The administrative law judge found that State Farm 'is experiencing extraordinary financial distress, coupled with surplus depletion that threatens ongoing business operations,' according to Mr. Lara's statement. In a statement published on its website, State Farm said that the insurer remains 'deeply concerned about the financial position of State Farm General' — the insurer's California subsidiary — 'as it is difficult to match price to risk in California.' The statement further pointed to the S&P Global Rating's decision on Tuesday to downgrade the California State Farm subsidiary from an 'AA' to an 'A+' rating, a move attributed in part to 'a significant deterioration' in the company's capital position over the last five years. During the recent hearing in California and in the process that ensued, State Farm was forced to make some concessions — lowering the rate hike to 17 percent, from nearly 22 percent, as well as requiring State Farm's parent company to provide an infusion of $400 million in cash to its California affiliate. For years, advocates for policyholders have argued that the way in which insurers have organized themselves — with major national companies like State Farm having both a national company and a California subsidiary — protects the insurer but not the customer. The higher rate comes after survivors of the Eaton fire in the working-class community of Altadena organized, first on a WhatsApp group dedicated to pickleball and later on Discord, a platform better known for gaming. There they found each other and collected hundreds of firsthand accounts of homeowners insured with State Farm in California, who were struggling to get paid even when their homes had been leveled, said Joy Chen, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles and the leader of the group, now known as the Eaton Fire Survivors Network. 'The ability to approve rate hikes is one of the few enforcement powers that the commissioner has,' she said. 'When you approve a rate hike without even examining whether a company is actually providing the service that they're being paid to provide, then it green lights systemic abuse,' she added. 'And it sends a message to every Californian who pays insurance premiums that you can pay, decade after decade, but if disaster strikes, your insurer may not be there — and your government may turn a blind eye.' In an emailed statement in response to questions regarding the claims of California wildfire victims who say they have been unfairly denied or lowballed by State Farm, a spokesman for the insurer added that the company was facing the largest fire event ever recorded in California. 'We actively work with each of our customers to resolve their claim,' the spokesman, Sevag A. Sarkissian, wrote. If State Farm's rate increase stands, other insurers are likely to follow suit.
Associated Press
09-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Texas lawmakers want to lower homeowners' insurance costs, but have few options
DALLAS (AP) — Texas lawmakers hope to rein in homeowners' rising insurance bills even as they acknowledge there's only so much they can do to tackle costs. Legislators have advanced bills to limit how much insurance companies can hike rates and help homeowners make their homes more insurable. They've also sought to compel insurers to be more upfront with homeowners when they decide to yank coverage, or deny it in the first place. Texans pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country. On average, Texas homeowners saw their insurance rates spike by double digits in recent years — a far cry from the previous decade when such increases were unheard of. Homeowners' insurance rates climbed by nearly 19% in 2024, according to the Texas Department of Insurance, slightly down from more than 21% the previous year. A number of factors have spurred insurance costs in recent years, insurance experts say. For one, property values in Texas surged amid the state's population boom — raising the cost to ensure homes and businesses. Climate change has intensified extreme weather events like hailstorms, hurricanes, and winter freezes and made severe weather more common. With the state's population growth, more people have moved into the path of that severe weather. Higher labor and construction material costs have driven up the cost of repairing damage when severe weather events damage a home. Buying homeowners insurance isn't an optional cost. Lenders require homebuyers to purchase insurance to obtain a mortgage. Even if a home is paid off, insurance experts say it's unwise to go without coverage in case disaster strikes. Even as lawmakers look for ways to tackle the insurance crisis, they acknowledge many of the drivers of insurance costs are beyond lawmakers' control, they say. 'We can't control the weather, we can't control inflation,' state Rep. Tom Oliverson, a Cypress Republican behind one such proposal, told a House committee last month. 'I can't control the availability of building materials, and I can't control how the houses that are already built were built, what standard they were built to.' And they find themselves in the position of trying to rein in exorbitant insurance costs without scaring off insurers and cratering the state's insurance market. One proposal by state Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, aims to give policyholders a check against steep rate increases. In Texas, insurers can file proposed rate increases with the Texas Department of Insurance, the state's insurance regulator, and implement the new rates right away. If the agency later decides the increase is unreasonable, they can disapprove it. Senate Bill 1643, which has cleared the Senate but awaits a committee hearing in the House, would require the insurance department to approve any rate increase above 10% before it can go into effect. 'As companies make significant rate changes, it is incumbent upon the Legislature to ensure that the regulatory environment is giving these filings the level of scrutiny they necessitate,' Schwertner said ahead of a Senate vote on the bill in April. That proposal has drawn pushback from the insurance industry. Capping rate increases does nothing to address the underlying drivers of the rising cost of providing insurance, said Beaman Floyd, who heads the Texas Coalition for Affordable Insurance Solutions, a group that represents major insurance companies including Allstate, State Farm and USAA. Insurers might pursue lower rate increases than they otherwise would have if they worry regulators wouldn't approve larger ones, Floyd said — leaving them with mounting financial liabilities that could lead to policy cancellations because insurers can't afford to provide coverage. 'That's not good for consumers,' Floyd said. Requiring the state insurance regulator to review rate increases above 10% doesn't necessarily mean the regulator will automatically reject those increases, Schwertner said in a statement. The bill 'simply seeks to curb unchecked rate filing and review practices,' he said. Consumer advocates argue the state's current system doesn't provide a real check on insurers — one that Schwertner's proposal could theoretically help create. But they also worry insurers will thwart the intent of the law simply by asking for multiple rate increases, a practice the bill doesn't cap. Ware Wendell, executive director of the consumer rights group Texas Watch, posited that an insurer could theoretically file a 9% increase one month and seek the same increase the next month. 'Insurance companies could come in and nibble,' Wendell said. The Texas Department of Insurance would still require insurers to justify their rate increases even if they filed multiple increases a year, Schwertner said. If those increases aren't justified, the state could still reject the increase, he said. Insurers and consumer groups agree on some proposals. House Bill 1576, authored by Oliverson, would create a state grant program to help homeowners retrofit their homes to withstand hurricanes and windstorms, modeled after a similar program in Alabama. The idea is that insurers will be more likely to insure a home if it's hardened against severe weather, and the cost of insuring that home will be lower. 'It's a very unique way for us to basically drive the cost of insurance down by encouraging folks — not mandating, this isn't a mandate — to rebuild your home to a higher standard that experiences less risk and less cost,' Oliverson told the House Insurance Committee in April. That bill cleared the House late last month. The Senate has yet to take action. How much money the state would spend on the program depends on the bill clearing both chambers, and on the outcome of budget negotiations between the House and Senate. Lawmakers have considered other ideas. The state insurance department is overseen by a single commissioner appointed by the governor. Another Schwertner proposal would expand that to three commissioners, one of which would be required to have expertise in consumer advocacy. Lawmakers have also advanced bills to prevent insurers from forcing consumers seeking homeowners insurance to also purchase auto insurance, and to require insurers to actively disclose why they may deny coverage to homeowners or cancel their policies. ___ This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
