State Farm's exit leaves Florida insurers and state scrambling

State Farm's exit leaves Florida insurers and state scrambling: "As State Farm Insurance Co. prepares to leave Florida's homeowners insurance market, the state and the insurance industry say they're doing all possible to keep the insurance giant's 1.2 million policies out of the state-run pool.
Florida Insurance 'Commissioner [Kevin] McCarty has said there is an appetite in the private market for this business,' said Tom Zutell, deputy director of communications for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulations. 'If this is all done in waves, [it] will be a lot easier to integrate cancelled policies than if State Farm says it's canceling them all in the next six months.'
But State Farm's two-year withdraw program has been put on hold due to a dispute between it and the state over how to get rid of policies.
Both parties hope to resolve the issue at an Oct. 12 hearing in Tallahassee.
Mr. Zutell said many insurance companies that pick up policies from the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. have put those 'takeout' programs on hold while state and State Farm iron out a final agreement.
'State Farm had originally decided that it would dump all [of its] policies into Citizens and let takeout companies remove them,' he added."