State Farm fired executive Haden Kirkpatrick after he was secretly recorded discussing the company’s emergency 22% rate hike for California homeowners affected by wildfires, according to the NY Post and the Los Angeles Times.
Kirkpatrick, believing he was on a Tinder date, said the hike was “kind of” orchestrated “but not in the way you would think,” according to a video published by James O’Keefe’s media company.
“Our people look at this and say, ‘S—, we’ve got like maybe $5 billion that we’re short if something happens,’” he said.
He continued: “We’ll go to the Department of Insurance and say, ‘We’re overexposed here, you have to let us catch up on [our] rates’. … He’ll say ‘Nah.’ And we’ll say, ‘OK, then we are going to cancel these policies.'”
The NY Post writes that Kirkpatrick was also recorded saying homes in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades shouldn’t have been built, claiming they exist only because residents wanted “natural areas around them for their ego” in what he called “a f–king desert.”
State Farm’s California subsidiary had requested an emergency 22% rate hike, citing wildfire losses and a $5 billion surplus decline over the past decade, Los Angeles Times reported. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who first rejected State Farm’s 22% rate hike, is now demanding answers, stating, “We want answers from State Farm. This only raises more questions.”
State Farm confirmed Kirkpatrick’s firing, calling his statements “inaccurate” and not reflective of the company’s views or commitment to Californians.
Kirkpatrick, who made the remarks during a January Tinder date, believes he was set up.
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