Blog: Insurance companies sweet on Rick Scott?
Feb 24, 2011
The following article was published in the Sarasota Herald Tribune on February 24, 2011:
Insurance companies sweet on Rick Scott?
By Zac Anderson
How else to explain not one but two pictures of Florida’s new governor on the front page of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America web site? Scott has been in office less than two months but insurance companies have high hopes he will deliver major reforms to the state’s property insurance market.
The insurance industry wants more flexibility to raise rates. Private insurers also want the state to curtail the growth of Citizen’s Property Insurance Corporation, the state-run insurer of last resort and the largest player in the state’s homeowners insurance market with 1.2 million policies. Scott believes Citizen’s keeps its rates artificially low, damaging the private insurance market. He has hinted at a Citizen’s rate hike.
Florida’s extensive spending on reinsurance helps fund the industry’s annual gathering at Monte Carlo.
Consumer advocates argue that large insurance rate hikes would hurt average Floridians and the state’s fledgling economic recovery. And there is evidence to suggest insurance companies are making more money than they let on.