April 7, 2010 The “news” about hurricane insurance in Florida isn’t new. The only question is what will be done. Florida TaxWatch this week reminded Floridians of the situation: Our state is one big hurricane (or several smaller ones) from financial disaster. With state-run Citizens Property Insurance having sopped up an unacceptable amount of risk, [...]

By STATE REP. BILL PROCTOR, COMMUNITY VOICES A serious threat to Florida’s economic recovery is the possibility that a major hurricane will strike a large metropolitan area this summer or next. The resulting damage to residential and commercial properties could exceed $80 billion. Many of the claims would be the responsibility of the state. Unfortunately, [...]

 04/06/2010 © Tallahassee Democrat (Requires Login) Lawmakers seem increasingly prepared, and so they should be, to challenge Gov. Charlie Crist’s threat to once again veto legislation that would open up the property insurance market and make it stable enough to ensure property owners would actually get a payout if the worst comes to pass. In [...]

By Howard Troxler, Times Columnist In Print: Sunday, April 4, 2010 Hey, do you want to pay more for insurance on your house? I’m taking a wild guess that your answer is “no.” So you might not like a bill in our Legislature that would let insurance companies charge more. It’s a “deregulation” bill to [...]

The Tampa Tribune Published: April 5, 2010 Property insurance in Florida, as Rep. Bill Proctor of St. Augustine says, is a house of cards. One major storm would blow it all away and with it the state’s economic future. Legislation sponsored by Proctor would begin to establish a market-based foundation for the state’s property insurance. [...]

By Don Brown April 2, 2010 Florida is in the grip of a failing insurance regulatory system that’s unjustly taxing residents, jeopardizing their insurance security and intruding upon consumer choices. This is abundantly clear from the alarming number of property insurers that are teetering on insolvency. A recent Sarasota Herald-Tribune report revealed that “during the [...]

By Marcia Heroux Pounds, Sun Sentinel 7:00 p.m. EDT, March 31, 2010 Florida employees who are sent to Haiti for rebuilding efforts and are injured could be covered by their standard workers’ compensation policy under a request submitted to Florida’s insurance department Tuesday. Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink sent a request March 2 to [...]

By Steve Pociask April 1, 2010 Imagine state government setting up a company to compete against private businesses. Suppose this government company begins selling products and services below cost, driving companies out of the market and leading to layoffs. Now, imagine the government business, realizing its prices are too low, decides to recoup losses by [...]

Ted Granger – Guest Opinion • news-press.com • March 30, 2010 With one month left in the 2010 state legislative session and the Atlantic hurricane season right around the corner, I am concerned about the risk associated with the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (CAT Fund) and Citizens Property Insurance. As president of the United Way [...]

By BRENT KALLESTAD – Associated Press Writer Tallahassee politicians must ensure a robust private property insurance market to avoid a financial disaster if a major hurricane or several smaller storms strike the state this summer, former Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday. The two-term governor said it’s critical that a measure similar to one vetoed by [...]

Mr. Crist needs to squash the latest effort to deregulate the homeowners’ market. Here’s why Gov. Crist might soon need to grab a great big Sharpie and veto legislation that lets property insurers impose great big rate hikes on policy holders without regulatory review. The reason comes straight from one of the insurance industry’s top [...]

By Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau In Print: Sunday, March 28, 2010 TALLAHASSEE — As Florida legislators hit the halfway mark in their 60-day session, they are following a simple election year recipe: sprinkle in a little policy, then pour on plenty of politics. For Republicans, it’s been a triumphant four weeks: They’ve spared [...]

March 25, 2010|By Julie Patel, South Florida Sun Sentinel The Senate’s insurance committee passed a bill Wednesday that would essentially allow home insurance rates to rise by a statewide average of up to 33 percent in the next three years. “Couple that with the 10 percent annual increase passed by this committee last week, and [...]

Opinion blogs By The Palm Beach Post Posted: 6:42 p.m. Thursday, March 25, 2010 Technically speaking, the Legislature’s property insurance deregulation bill isn’t a deregulation bill anymore. Practically speaking, the Legislature’s property insurance deregulation bill remains exactly that. In their first versions, House Bill 447 and Senate Bill 876 would have allowed the 200-plus companies that write property insurance in [...]