How Selling Insurance Became One of the Worst Jobs in California – WSJ

Brian Harper probably has the least desirable occupation in California. He sells insurance.

Harper s job used to be to find good policies on home and auto plans for his clients. Now he breaks bad news: Rates are going up, coverage has been cut, and policies have been canceled.

It s soul-crushingly tough, said Harper, who owns an insurance agency in the mountain town of Coarsegold, near Yosemite National Park. There are no good days.  

Like Harper, many agents are on the sharp end of a national crisis in home and auto insurance. Things are especially bad in California. Insurers have fled the state, pummeled by losses from drought-spurred wildfires and, this month, storm-triggered flooding.  

It never used to be this bad. Harper, an 18-year insurance veteran who sells on behalf of Farmers Insurance, said his job offered the satisfaction of helping people. A family would walk in needing coverage, you d write them a policy, and they d walk out happy, he said.

Those days just don t happen anymore, he added. You never get to deliver good news every rate change is an increase, every coverage change is a restriction. My staff and I, we ve had to build up some scar tissue.

via www.wsj.com

My fire insurance was cancelled a year or so ago. Lots of policies get cancelled out here. It took a long time to find a replacement. We finally did, at twice what we paid before when combined, as we had to, with state subsidized insurance. It’s not “drought-spurred wildfires” and “storm-triggered flooding.” It’s endless BS regulation of insurance in our fair state to make sure people don’t have to pay for all of their risk. That might include me but I doubt it.