In September, Farmers Insurance will no longer issue new homeowners insurance policies in North Carolina.  Then in November, Farmers will begin non-renewing their ENTIRE homeowners book in the state, month by month.  This is not necessarily good news for insurance consumers.  One less carrier means one less option to get your rates down.

Even though I am an Allstate Insurance agent, it's never good to see another carrier pull out of the state.  Although I now have one less competitor, it also means the state as a whole has one less carrier to spread catastrophic risk upon.

The reason cited by Farmers is that they cannot bear the potential risk of hurricane assesment if there were to be a major hurricane in the state.  The article in its entirety can be found here:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2008/08/14/92787.htm