State Mutual Automobile Insurance Co

A leading rating agency downgraded State Farm's California operations this week because of significant losses in the insurer's homeowner business. A.M. Best cut its financial strength rating on State Farm General Insurance Co., a subsidiary of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., from A-minus, or "excellent," to B-plus, or "very good."

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest U.S. home and auto insurer, said Friday that its profit fell 39% in 2005 after it paid record hurricane claims. Net income declined to $3.24 billion from $5.31 billion in 2004, the company said. Storm claims were $6.3 billion, prompting a $779-million underwriting loss at State Farm's property and casualty units. The Bloomington, Ill.

Yahoo Inc. has shut some Internet chat rooms after companies including PepsiCo Inc. and Georgia-Pacific Corp. pulled advertising, citing concerns that the sites were being used by adults to lure young children. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Georgia-Pacific and Pepsi said they pulled certain ads after being informed by a Texas television news station that the ads were being displayed to users of chat rooms covering topics such as pedophilia.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the nation's largest auto insurer, is eliminating automatic collision and liability coverage for some policyholders who rent cars on business. Instead, State Farm has begun selling the coverage as a $40-a-year option.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. on Friday agreed to pay $200 million to settle a class-action lawsuit charging it misled customers when it sold 4.4 million life insurance policies from 1982 to 1997. Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm didn't admit to any wrongdoing and said it was settling to avoid a costly legal fight. "It's in everyone's best interest to settle this case," State Farm Executive Vice President Roger Tompkins said in a statement. State Farm, the largest insurer of U.S.

Arguing that earthquake insurance rate increases are being approved without adequate scrutiny, a consumer group Monday requested hearings on more than 20 applications for rate hikes, which could delay approvals for months--well into the term of Insurance Commissioner-elect Charles W. Quackenbush. The Proposition 103 Enforcement Project, headed by Harvey Rosenfield, author of the 1988 rate-cutting initiative, said it will intervene in filings by State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. on Monday said it will refund $891.6 million to its policyholders in California and 34 other states and the District of Columbia as accident claims continue to fall. State Farm's 3 million policyholders in California will receive a collective $172 million in refunds, the insurer said. The refund amounts vary greatly from state to state, depending on the number of policies and the accident claim rate.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. is recalling more than 800,000 toy bears given away by the company's agents because they pose a choking hazard. The insurer received one report of a so-called Good Neigh Bear losing a plastic eye, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The brown bears were distributed from September 2005 through March 2007. Information: (877) 226-8079, www.statefarm.com or www.cpsc.gov. Golden Chocolate International Inc. is recalling its Brighton Beach Candy because it might contain walnuts not listed on the label, posing a threat to people with allergies.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., California's largest homeowner insurer, on Friday raised its estimate of insurance losses from the Northridge earthquake to $1 billion from an initial estimate of $600 million. State Farm's announcement, the latest in a series of sharp upward revisions of loss projections, assures that the final total of insured damage from the Jan. 17 quake will far exceed the insurance industry's initial estimate of $2.5 billion.

A Biloxi, Miss., couple who sued State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home were awarded $2.7 million in damages in a Mississippi federal court Thursday. The award could have major implications for other insurers that are being sued for damages in connection with the storm, which caused more than $38 billion of insured damage in August 2005. A jury in the U.S. District Court in Gulfport, Miss.