State Farm, Farmers Insurance most exposed to California wildfires

State Farm and Farmers Insurance Group of Companies have the highest wildfire exposure in California where the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire are set to cause significant losses for insurers and reinsurers.

State Farm has a market share of 11.7 percent in California and Farmers Insurance holds 11.5 percent, according to a KBW analyst note.

Liberty Mutual holds 6.2 percent while Allstate Corporation has 5.4 percent market share, followed by Auto Club Exchange (5.3 percent) and CSAA Insurance Exchange (5.3 percent).

The Camp Fire started on Nov. 8 burning 150,000 acres and is 65 percent contained, according to latest information form the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The wildfire has destroyed 10,364 residences, 418 commercial and 2,992 other buildings, according to Cal Fire.

The Woolsey Fire also started on Nov. 8 burning 96,949 acres and is 91 percent contained as of Nov. 18. So far, 1,452 structures have been destroyed and 337 have been damaged, according to Cal Fire.

Primary insurers rather than reinsurers are set to bear most of the insured losses from the recent wildfire events, although reinsurers should have some exposure including aggregate covers reflecting year-to-date catastrophe losses, KBW said.

KBW expects that the current fires' losses will likely match or slightly exceed the losses caused by multiple October 2017 Northern California Wildfires that collectively burned over 245,000 acres and destroyed over 8,900 structures.

The historic 2017 wildfires in the US led to nearly $16 billion in insurance payments; almost entirely from the October and December events in California.

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