Capitol to Courthouse Headliners: Friday, June 8

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Protesters fight for no-fault insurance

With placards reading ”Save PIP Or We All Pay” and ”Human Need Over Corporate Greed,” about 200 protesters gathered outside House Speaker Marco Rubio’s district office Thursday to demand lawmakers prevent the state’s no-fault auto insurance bill from expiring.

 

Auto insurance requirements are up in the air

If lawmakers don’t take action before the state’s no-fault law expires in October, the courts could well decide how much and what kind of auto insurance coverage Florida drivers will have to buy.

 

Florida lawmakers release tax cut details

Property taxpayers would save about 11 percent on their 2007 tax bill and even more money next year if they approve a constitutional amendment to super-size their homeowners tax exemptions, according to details of the legislature’s tax cut plan released late Friday afternoon.

 

State legislators at a loss for details as tax-cut special session nears

SARASOTA — Five days before the Legislature convenes a special session to consider perhaps the biggest property tax cuts in Florida’s history, even the legislators themselves say they know little about what they are about to vote on.

 

Supreme Court hears wind-water hurricane insurance argument

An insurance company lawyer argued to the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday that his client should not have to pay full policy limits for wind damage to a home destroyed mainly by flooding during Hurricane Ivan.

 

Healthcare workers: We need to drive change

Hospitals need to change, even accepting lower reimbursement rates, or they may lose out in the healthcare reform movement that’s now sweeping the country, a hospital executive said Friday before 200 persons attending the annual South Florida healthcare summit in Davie.

 

Corps: New doubts about N.O. pumps

The faulty drainage pumps that the Army Corps of Engineers installed before last year’s hurricane season still have mechanical flaws, according to a Corps report released Friday that also criticized the pump contracts. Sen. Mary Landrieu immediately called for a federal investigation.

 

States’ Residual Market Exposure Hits $650 Billion

The Insurance Information Institute in a new study said total exposure to loss by state-run property insurers of last resort has exceeded an estimated $650 billion.

 

South Carolina Comp Reform Closer

South Carolina legislators have hammered out a workers’ compensation reform measure that toughens penalties for employers who cheat the system and puts restrictions on some injury claims.

 

Police: Man Drowned Child for Insurance

SEATTLE — The firefighters who tried to save 3-year-old Ashley McLellan, unconscious after being pulled from a pool on a winter night in 2003, noticed something strange about her stepfather: He was calm, mostly dry and never once asked them if she would live.

 

$10M for I-75 interchange gets national attention

More connections made between Rep. Young, Aronoff, and the mysterious earmark

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, still isn’t talking. But the buzz about his $10 million earmark for an Interstate 75 interchange at Coconut Road is getting louder.

 

Give Us An Optional Fed Charter, Reinsurers Say

NEW YORK —Three reinsurance company executives want to be regulated, but not by 50 U.S. state regulators, they said at a conference here Tuesday.

 

Fast-Growing, State-Run Property Insurers Pose Risk for Taxpayers

Exponential growth of state-run property insurers of last resort ultimately may shift much of the long-term risk of hurricane-related losses to policyholders and taxpayers, even those who live nowhere near the coast, reports the private insurance industry’s Insurance Information Institute.

 

What is ‘retirement age’? Definition may change

WASHINGTON – Joe Bonanno, 66, isn’t trying to break new social ground as he serves customers in the electrical aisles of a St. Petersburg Home Depot.

 

Talk of the bay: Title company prepares for final landing

The Talon Group, the once high-flying title company, has been grounded by its parent company. Talon soared into the Tampa Bay area in 2003 and quickly spread to offices in St. Petersburg, Palm Harbor and Carrollwood.

 

Microsoft’s Art Collection Grows Up

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Leah Erickson let out an exasperated growl when she spotted a banner advertising ”Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007” crookedly thumbtacked above a row of photographs framed and lit with museumlike care.