CA FAIR Plan Issues

[Jamie Miller]

Anyone else super frustrated by the CA FAIR Plan? Since the migration to the new Duck Creek platform, it's been an absolute sh!tshow. Quote turnaround used to be 3-5 business days and now, a quote I submitted on the 9th is still pending as 'referred'. A tiny endorsement that did not require photos has been 'referred' for almost a month. When I call, it's a 4-hour hold time and 90% of the time the call is dropped in the first 30 seconds due to their having 'phone provider issues' as stated on their website. Even if I give my phone number at the beginning of the call, I am not called back when dropped. Today, I've tried calling five times and each time, after I select option 5, the line is silent then goes dead. I'm going to have clients going without coverage because of this ineptitude.
Though I have those two items mentioned above pending, we're not going to submit any more FAIR Plan quotes/policies until they can get it together. I'm assuming this is exactly what they want.

 

[marindependent]

Anyone else super frustrated by the CA FAIR Plan?

Yes.

Quote turnaround used to be 3-5 business days and now, a quote I submitted on the 9th is still pending as 'referred'.

Same

4-hour hold time

Is that all?

A tiny endorsement that did not require photos has been 'referred' for almost a month.

Same

not going to submit any more FAIR Plan quotes/policies until they can get it together.

I think that is there new risk transfer plan... stop processing and force business into NA world.

Stay Sane.

 

[marindependent]

Interesting Article about the FAIR plan from Cal Matters:

350,000 Californians are now on the FAIR Plan, the last resort for fire insurance. Now what?

It is frankly not a good report on the state of FAIR:
"As the FAIR Plan has exploded in size — from 126,709 policies in 2018 to more than 350,000 today — homeowners and insurance brokers say they are now facing problems such as delays in mortgage closings, or homeowners losing their coverage."

"he couldn’t email the FAIR Plan because the plan’s website does not provide an email address. Instead, the website tells homeowners to contact their insurance brokers. King’s broker found out that he had been assigned a new policy number without his knowledge. He barely had time to send a payment via his broker, putting him dangerously close to cancellation. Based on his individual experience, King has concluded that the FAIR Plan “is doing everything it can to help policies lapse.”

“It’s clear that a growing FAIR Plan is a problem for all Californians because of the solvency risks from a major wildfire,” said Michael Soller, spokesperson for the Insurance Department, in an email. “

"Incoming phone calls nearly doubled over the last half of 2023, to more than 50,000 phone calls a month."

"Georgia, a Placer County homeowner who requested that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, said that in mid-December, her insurance broker informed her the day her premium was due that her payment had not been received, even though the money was in escrow and she later found out that her mortgage company had already paid it. The result: She, her husband and their three kids had to part with $2,380 right before Christmas to pay their premium because they didn’t want to risk losing fire insurance. "

"The FAIR Plan “didn’t contact anyone until days before they dropped me,” she said, and refused to give her a grace period or reinstate her. “No communication, customer service, compassion,” she added. Her only recourse was to reapply for another policy, and she said her $2,257 annual premium increased to $3,481. Last year, she said it rose again, to $3,686. And because she can’t get fire insurance anywhere else, she has no choice but to accept the price increases."

There is a lot more to the story. Check it out.

 

[Jamie Miller]

Thanks for posting that! Yep, that's a great snapshot of what's going on right now. It took six weeks for an application to be approved, then the premium tripled because, while I submitted in November, the December rate change happened while I waited so the premium was now triple. Almost $30k. I submitted a $10 endorsement in November for another policy, it was approved after a month, we paid it, and a new dec page still has not issued.
We received the payment notice (no grace periods, etc.) from FAIR, and I'm sure they didn't take steps to notify their customers, so we mailed letters to all of our clients on the FAIR Plan just to make sure they knew about it.
I actually turned down business this week because I don't want to deal with FAIR until they return to some semblance of reliability and timeliness.

 

[marindependent]

@JamieMiller - thanks for the post and response. One of the core problems is that there seems to no longer be a simple calculator that they used to have for agent to gauge premiums. [The one they have the application is usually wrong and sometimes way off] - so more and more agents are doing full blown applications - just to see the costs associated.

 

[Paul H]

Wow. You can actually log in...our agency has been waiting since the first announcement about the roll-over to get everybody on-boarded.

I finally received my invitation link last month and completed it. Called to follow up on it today as I haven't seen or heard a peep from them.

Confirmed the email is right and the rep is telling me I can log-in at Duck Creek with it and that it isn't password-dependent. While I'm staring at the log-in screen that is asking me for my password.

Shit-show is a generous description.