State Farm Cancels Planned Super Bowl Ad Amid California Fires Controversy

State Farm is out on the Big Game.

The insurance company is bowing out of its plans to run a commercial during the Super Bowl in the wake of the California wildfires, a company spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports.

“State Farm, State Farm agents, and our employees are all focused on helping customers impacted by the Southern California wildfires in the midst of this tragedy. State Farm serves more [than] 8 million customers in California – more than any other insurer – and we’ve been doing this for nearly 100 years. Our claims force is the largest in the industry and we are bringing the full scale and force of our catastrophe response teams to help customers recover – whether they are on the ground in LA or across the country,” the company said in a statement.

“We are proud to report that our customer contact is at 90%. We’ve received over 7,400 home and auto claims, and we are putting tens of millions of dollars back into customers’ hands. These numbers will continue to rise as residents return and assess damage. Our focus is firmly on providing support to the people of Los Angeles. We will not be advertising during the game as originally planned.”

Ad Age first reported that State Farm had canceled its planned Super Bowl commercial. 

Last year, State Farm ran an ad featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

Fox is charging $7 million per 30-second Super Bowl commercial, and it will not have any issue filling the gap left by State Farm, as there is a waitlist for the spots.   

The decision to bow out of the Super Bowl comes as State Farm has faced backlash for canceling homeowners insurance policies before the fires that continue to rage in Southern California. 

The insurer made the decision on those policies in part due to state regulations that prevented them from raising premium prices in accordance with what the company perceived the risk entailed.