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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s new Twitter competitor, Threads, has seen a
drop in half of all site traffic only two weeks after its launch, according to
The Messenger.

Meta’s new Twitter-like platform Threads has seen a 25.4 million drop in active
users, with traffic falling from 49 million active users to 23.6 million active
users in just a week, according to The Messenger. Threads originally saw 100
million new users in its first five days, with 30 million of those coming in
just the first day.

“I’m very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together,”
Zuckerberg said Monday night on Threads. “Early growth was off the charts, but
more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily. That’s way ahead
of what we expected. The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics
and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that then we’ll
focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG,
Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too.”

Threads is a new app from Meta launched in early July that takes a similar style
and functionality to Twitter, according to Axios. The platform is linked to
Instagram, enabling users to create an account from their Instagram account.








The new app from Meta has faced criticism for censorship since its recent
arrival. Libs of TikTok posted to the site saying “[n]on-binary isn’t real” just
two days after the site’s launch, with the post being removed due to “hate
speech” guidelines. Other Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram have faced
similar censorship efforts in the past.



“We’re on day eight of Threads, and growth, retention, and engagement are all
way ahead of where I expected us to be at this point. But what I’m most excited
about is the quality of the creator community that has shown up,” Adam Mosseri,
head of Instagram, said on Threads. “Our focus right now is not engagement,
which has been amazing, but getting past the initial peak and trough we see with
every new product, and building new features, dialing in performance, and
improving ranking.”

Just hours after Threads launched, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro threatened in a
letter to sue the company over “intellectual property rights,” claiming that
Meta hired a number of ex-Twitter employees to create Threads as a copy of
Twitter using Twitter’s confidential information.

When asked for comment, Meta directed the Daily Caller News Foundation to
Zuckerberg and Mosseri’s Thread posts.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and
nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news
publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must
include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any
questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please
contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.






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Insuring a home in Florida got a little bit more difficult this week after AAA
joined a growing list of companies that are ending some homeowner insurance
policies in Florida.

The Florida-based insurer will not renew package policies that combine home,
automobile and optional umbrella coverage, according to the Palm Beach Post,
part of the USA TODAY Network. With hurricane season around the corner and
drastically fewer insurance offerings, this could leave some vulnerable.  



While AAA's move will only affect a “small number” of policyholders, the news
was almost swept away in the deluge of news following Farmers Insurance's
surprise announcement that it is pulling out of the state.  

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

The back-to-back announcements underscore the insurance crisis Florida residents
have been facing for the past 18 months.  

And it's a crisis that's largely manmade, according to Mark Friedlander,
spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, as several local insurance
providers folded and three national insurers have withdrawn from the state.
Despite recent legislation intended to alleviate the problems fueling the
crisis, he said the market volatility persists.  

“Case in point, insurers are making decisions to pull back on risk and AAA is
certainly a recent example of that,” said Friedlander. 

Here is how Florida got to this point and what it could mean for residents.  




HOW DID FLORIDA'S INSURANCE CRISIS START?  

 * The crisis is manmade because it is largely fueled by frivolous lawsuits and
   fraudulent insurance claims, Friedlander said. A 2017 Florida Supreme Court
   ruling in favor of plaintiffs opened the door for a large volume of roofing
   scams and claim litigation. During the last three years, 80% of property
   claim lawsuits in the country have been in Florida, compared to just 9% of
   the claims.  
 * The litigation costs proved to be too much for local, residential-only
   insurers and prompted seven of them to become insolvent. For national
   insurers, the costs have translated to higher premiums or fewer policy
   offerings.  
 * Florida’s hurricane risk has also played a role, as extreme weather has in
   many other states. Hurricane Ian in September 2022 posted the greatest
   insured loss after Hurricane Katrina according to CNBC. 





WHICH COMPANIES HAVE DECREASED FLORIDA INSURANCE COVERAGE?  

 * Three major companies have voluntarily withdrawn from the state since last
   year: Farmers Insurance, Bankers Insurance and Lexington Insurance, a
   subsidiary of AIG. 
 * AAA is not renewing a “very small percentage of higher exposure homeowner’s
   policies,” it told the Palm Beach Post. It has also released a statement
   saying that it is continuing to write new policies in the state.
 * Friedlander said there are also 15 businesses that have stopped writing new
   policies but declined to name them. 
 * Seven local insurance companies have become insolvent since February 2022.  




HOW DOES IT AFFECT PREMIUMS?  

Florida homeowners already pay more than the national average, and the premiums
are only on the rise.

According to an analysis by the Insurance Information Institute, homeowners in
Florida pay $6,000 a year on average for homeowners insurance, up 42% from last
year. The average in the US is $1,700.  

A depleted supply is partly responsible for driving up those costs, but not as
much as litigation according to Friedlander.  




HOW ARE HOMEOWNERS RESPONDING TO THE INSURANCE CRISIS? 

The crisis is pushing more homeowners to “go bare” or decline purchasing
homeowner’s insurance. In Florida, nearly 15% of homeowners do not have
insurance, double the national rate. Friedlander attributed this to the crisis.
This is only an option for those without a mortgage.  



Florida homeowners are also opting to enroll in the state-backed, backstop
insurer Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Friedlander said that Citizens’
market share has doubled in the last 18 months as it averages 30,000 new
subscribers each month.  

While state-operated insurers are common, he said that typically the rates are
higher than private insurance to keep them as a last-resort option. In Florida,
Citizens’ premiums are lower than private insurers, which have skyrocketed past
the limit that Citizens is legally allowed to charge. As a result, Citizens is
taking on more risk than it can fund in the face of a major disaster.  

Should Citizens experience a payout shortfall, all taxpayers in the state would
be on the hook to bail it out with a multi-year hurricane surcharge on their tax
bill.  

“So it’s a bad situation,” said Friedlander. “We never want to be in that
situation.”

Contributing: Hannah Morse, Palm Beach Post; Brandon Girod, Pensacola News
Journal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Another company avoids risky
Florida home insurance policies: Here's what caused the crisis




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