Strange alliances on property insurance

The Senate property insurance package currently up on the floor -- and expected to pass-- has seen some interesting teamwork. Republican Sen. Jeff Atwater has spent much of the last two weeks working with Republican Sen. J.D. Alexander, who runs the committee where the bill last stopped.

Atwater has lately sounded a lot like Gov. Charlie Crist in his pounding of the industry and Alexander has historically been one of the Senate's chief defenders of the insurance industry.

Among other results, those negotiations resulted in caps, set fairly high, for increased penalties (up to $100,000 from the current $20,000 for willful violations), which regulators can charge insurers for failing to meet regulator's  rules and deadlines. With the recently added caps, insurers wouldn't be able to be charged more than 5 percent of their surplus for willful violations.

But Alexander's role appears to have passed to Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, an insurance agent who has loudly argued and voted against this package in every committee and on the floor. Minority Leader Sen. Steve Geller, who as co-chair of the special select insurance panel has also worked with Sen. Atwater on the bill, has had to argue against his Democratic colleague's efforts.

Update: Rules chair Sen. Jim King tells Sen. Al Lawson to Behave! "Let us not forget the basic purview. We do not personalize we do not castigate. We do not cast aspersions," King says.

Comments

Suddenly Atwater becomes more like the popular Crist? Wow. Could this be because he has an election coming up? One he needs to be worried about? Could it be because this is a poular issue to suddenly love? He will have so many other things to worry about, like the many votes he has already taken that goes against the needs of his own district. His opponent has so much to use in this election and now even has the CSX givaway that ATwater voted for yesterday. Now he basically says to ALexander that he will have to make noise on this isue, but not to worry because I just need some media and sound bites that I can use in my political mailouts. So don't worry JD Alexander, its all for show. Your buddies will get what they want.

Hurry up Dockery and Dean- get your staff on here saying bad things about Atwater and Alexander. Crack the whip, they're slacking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

13 minutes and Dockery isn't on here yet making up lies about Alexander? What's happened to her? Come on Paula, sling that mud.

Woooooooooooo, you seemed to have missed the first post! Paula is already on there with the CSX lies, she ain't slacking.

11:17, true but it was rather weak. Musta been a Dockery staffer. When Paula gets on here, it's much meaner and quite a bit whinier.

Hey Bullet Train Dockery, we need more commuter rail bashing, bring it.

Do Nothing Dean and Wine-a-lot Dockery will be here momentarily. They're getting their talking points from Demollobos first.

I blame FL legislators for the insurance mess, not the insurance companies. Our state is never going to get a handle on hurricane risk until we perform our own, independent risk study rather than relying on the insurance companies to tell us how much a property should pay.

With all of the recent catastrophic storms in the US, there should be abundant up to date information available for us to build our own models.

Furthermore, I suspect that these models would show that in most cases, there is a huge amount of risk concentrated right on the very edge of the water, with the damage dropping off very rapidly only a few hundred yards inland.

The reason why we don't have and use this model, is because the rich fatcats who live on the water want the rest of us to subsidize their unrealistic decision to build multi-million dollar homes in places where they should not be.

If the Florida government would stop sucking up to these rich campaign donors, and force insurance companies to assess their properties at their actual risk and loss level, I'll bet the rest of us would see a huge drop in our premiums. Or else we'd see a lot less buildings on our beaches and barrier islands, where they don't belong in the first place.

11:23 - Great post!

I blame Do Nothing Dean and Whine-a-lot Dockery for doing nothing and whining a lot. It's really annoying.

Villalobos, Dean, and Dockery should REALLY enjoy their next 4 years :)

1. Require insurance coverage for outstanding mortgage amount only.

2. Require Insurance companies to re-pay all premiums, with interest, to any customer the wish to drop or non-renew – provided said customer has had no claims.

Problem Solved!

Hey Charlie Dean, got any side deals going on dependant on legislation? Remember, this is a contact sport and you threw down the gauntlet yesterday by jumping on the Dockery bandwagon.

12:11, catch Do Nothing Dean doing something would be a miracle. Catch him doing what is being insinuated, and he'll lose his DOUBLE DIPPING state retirement!

Dean the Double Dipper. That's hilarious.

Dean, the Double Dipping Dockery Do Nothing.

Maybe Dean IS doing something. Maybe Dean is getting the kind of attention from Dockery that used to be reserved only for Paul Hamilton.

1. Require insurance coverage for outstanding mortgage amount only.

2. Require Insurance companies to re-pay all premiums, with interest, to any customer the wish to drop or non-renew – provided said customer has had no claims.

Problem Solved!

james and derek are on the blogs again I see. Keep up the good work boys, JD will "pay you back" later.

12:29 just to clarify, you want the property owner to self insure for the amount from the 1st dollar that they own and the insurance carrier to cover the outstanding mortgage balance above that level, correct? You do understand that the cost of coverage you would have the insurance company would then cover would not save you $ for $ premium as the actuarial risk is not as high. Still, at least the consumer would have the option.

How is your 2nd proposal sensible? You act as though the insurance company did not provide the protection during the policy period as a result of them not wanting to do business with you once a contract expires. Do you ask for a refund on your haircut because the day after you got your last one the wind blew it out of place?

It’s really quite simple once you remove the emotion of fear-based profit, and focus simply on tangible service transactions of the free market concept.

1. Require insurance coverage for outstanding mortgage amount only.

Insure my debt, I’ll cover my losses beyond that. Everyone yells about “personal responsibility” when it comes to government and taxes, why not private industry and profit? As for “actuarial risk”… it’s an industry profit-based methodology; that’s all.

2. Require Insurance companies to re-pay all premiums, with interest, to any customer they wish to drop or non-renew – provided said customer has had no claims.

People do not pay insurance companies to provide protection, unless you consider the insurance industry to be a legal Mafioso. They pay the company to provide coverage in the event of a loss. If I’ve paid-forward to cover a loss, have had no loss, and you decide to drop or non-renew me… the company should not be allowed to walk with the collected fees, having provided no tangible service… re-pay my investment into your company for services “not” rendered, and go on about your way.

I say tear down everything 1000 feet from the water, so stuff further inland can have the greater exposure... no buildings and other infrastructure to shield inland buildings...

ummm.... Buahahahahahahaaa... get back to work... agent.

[Ma Nature]

2:16 I'd take you up on that trade-off in a heartbeat!

Once upon a time the Florida Wind Pool wrote wind only coverage for the defined coastal wind zones. Therefore the high premium for the "fat cats" was not allocated to the inland dwellers. However, Bill Nelson, Insurance Commission at the time, thought it would be a good idea to marry the Wind Pool and the RPJUA and create the entity now known as Citizens. Concurrently, he also transferred the risk from the insurance companies to the State of Floridas. Now the premiums for all coverages are smoothed under a state wide risk model. Guess who is now responsible for losses under this crafty Nelson scheme? Wonder why your inland premiums have gone up? Call Bill. Believe me folks, Bill Nelson was a total castrophe and is almost solely to blame for the screwed up socialized property insurance in Florida today. I know that knee jerk Democrats will regard this as a political statement, maybe try to blame it on Gallagher, the legislature, a cruel God, etc......but the foregoing facts can be easily confirmed.

GET BACK TO WORK STEALING MY TAXES... STAFFER!

[john donson]

Drop 'em like a rock Charlie!

Atwater could not stand for something if his life depended on it.

1. Require insurance coverage for outstanding mortgage amount only.

2. Require Insurance companies to re-pay all premiums, with interest, to any customer the wish to drop or non-renew – provided said customer has had no claims.

Problem Solved!

So go ahead and beat up on the insurance companies. If they could make money on writing property insurance, there would be no Citizens, and there would be plenty of competition. So what do Florida policy makers do? Beat the crap out of those who are still writing and trying to compete with the Nelson/Crist socialized state insurance program. Like Gresham's law, bad government drives out good money.

11:24, 3:46....please stop embarrassing yourself multiple times.

Each year is a new policy, a new contract. Neither side (the insurance company OR the policy holder) is obligated to enter into contract after contract with the other party. Gt your head out of the entitlement sand and consider that you aren't owed a policy.

So what's all this about Dockery and this Paul dude? She's from the 1970's with that hair and he's from the stone age with that monkey-man look. He should apply for the Geico cave man role in the TV series.

[Maxwell Smart]

Why is it that JD didn't stand up for any of his insurance buddies in the floor "fight" today?? Could it be because he's going to get something from Atwater once he becomes Senate President?? Like maybe Appropriations Chairman so he can make some sweet offers on his own land??!!!

What happened to good ol' JD? He used to be so principled. Maybe it was something he ate - last year at the Governor's Mansion.