Kevin McCarty: Insurance chief offers clarification on records
Kevin M. McCarty • My View • April 12, 2009
Re: "Florida plays ostrich in insurance crisis" (My View, April 8).
I applaud Don Crane’s efforts to evaluate the issues related to hurricane risk as our state continues to address this complicated problem. The Office of Insurance Regulation is committed to providing all statutorily collected information and data to state policymakers and the public.
Mr. Crane’s commentary, though, illustrates some confusion as to what information the office collects as part of its regulatory duties. Based on suggested OIR reporting requirements in Mr. Crane’s commentary, I would like to offer brief responses for clarification.
Require the OIR to report hurricane premiums for residential and commercial residential policies for the past four years, and make projections for 2010-2012. Companies are not required by statute to report hurricane portions of property insurance premiums.
All premium data collected by the Office are available in our Annual Report to the Legislature. Annual reports reporting data from 2003 to present are available on our Web site (http://www.floir.com). The office does not make predictions about future industry rate requests.
Require OIR to report the average annual losses on residential property for the past 30 years in 2009 dollars. Loss ratios for residential property (and other lines of insurance) are also available in our annual reports. Archived annual reports from the former Department of Insurance can be requested through the public records process.
Require the OIR to begin this year obtaining and reporting to the Legislature all hurricane premiums on all insured buildings in Florida. As stated above, this is not required by current Florida law.
Unfortunately, there is no "silver bullet" that will easily solve the problem of insuring hurricane risk in Florida. Although our state faces significant property insurance difficulties, the office is dedicated to using our authority under the law to address these complex issues.
All information collected by the Office of Insurance Regulation is available to the governor, the Legislature and private citizens. The office continues to implement new technology innovations to make the data we collect even more accessible and transparent for use by our state leaders and the public at large.