Allstate cutting windstorm coverage for coastal customers (65,000)

[The Straight Story]

Allstate cutting windstorm coverage for coastal customers
May 19, 2006 10:12 PM

CORPUS CHRISTI - Allstate has announced that 65,000 customers living along the Texas coast will soon lose their hurricane coverage. Allstate isn't the first major insurance company to stop providing windstorm insurance in coastal counties and it looks like it won't be the last.

If you're a homeowner that's bad news. The letters will go out in June to 65,000 Allstate customers in Texas. Starting September 15, none of them will be able to renew their windstorm coverage. Instead, you'll have to turn to the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, or TWIS, an option of last resort, which is quickly becoming the only option left for local homeowners.

What used to be a problem for primarily island homes is now becoming a problem for the rest of the county, and the rest of the coast from Brownsville to Louisiana. The threat of hurricanes is scaring off a growing number of private insurance providers.

"We have had eight out of the 10 biggest national catastrophes ever in the last five years, so insurance companies as a whole are looking at making sure we don't put ourselves in a position with some type of natural catastrophe where financially we wouldn't have the stability to go forward," said Allstate agent Laura Harris.

http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4926995