State Farm to pull our of Florida market

State Farm asked for a 47% increase in rates it charges its customers, the government said no.  Now State Farm has stated it plans to exit the Florida market.  The company posted billions of dollars of loses following the 2004 storm season and its net worth has reduced by 25% since then.  

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Note:  Correct me if I’m wrong, but nothing in the article stated how much the company made in the years previous to the storms.  A bad year and all of the sudden they are ready to pull the plug?  How about you stuff some of the profits you make in good years into a mattress so you can use it when you have bad years…  Isn’t that good financial planning?

ING (Dutch) to cut 7,000

The Dutch bases finance and insurance firm ING to cut 7,000 in effort to save $1.4 billion.  

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CitiGroup Spliting in two…

CitiGroup said on Friday it would split the company into two operations.  

The first CitiCorp would hold all the businesses the company wants to keep long term including credit cards, wealth management, the corporate bank and the investment bank.  Everything else would go into the Citi Holdings division. 

CitiHoldings would basically be a place to hold the assets until they are sold off.  The most visible division is Primerica which has been on the market a year with no takers to purchase it.

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