Capitol to Courthouse Headliners: Monday, December 1
Dec 1, 2008
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Crist, Fla. banks halt foreclosures for 45 days
Florida’s bankers and credit unions announced Monday that they’d suspend foreclosing on homeowners for the next 45 days.
EDITORIAL: Act before luck runs out
On the last day of hurricane season, Floridians can count their blessings. No major hurricanes hit the state this year, and property insurance premiums dropped modestly for many homeowners. But the property insurance problems remain very real, coverage remains unaffordable and unavailable for many, and legislators need to make some tough decisions before Florida’s luck runs out.
Insurance Groups Urge Fix For Fla. Catastrophe Fund
Florida may have dodged a bullet avoiding a major storm in the 2008 hurricane season, but insurance industry groups have warned lawmakers about the need to address the state’s underfunded Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.
New companies encouraged to insure
When it comes to Florida property insurance, political realities in Tallahassee are clashing head on with traditional industry standards of fiscal responsibility. The homeowner is caught in the middle.
Crist Replaces Controversial Work Comp Judge
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist issued 11 appointments and reappointments of state judges of compensation claims (JCCs) Wednesday and made good on an earlier pledge to replace controversial Jacksonville JCC William Dane.
COLUMN: Property insurance wording in state law changing
Q. What is the change in the state law that requires each owner to have insurance on our property?
Ruling renews focus on workers’ comp law
The case started in 2003 when nursing assistant Emma Murray felt something tear in her abdomen as she helped lift a patient from a chair into a bed.
Quiet hurricane season won’t mean cheaper insurance for homeowners
Although Florida was largely spared from storm damage this season, other factors are expected to keep insurance premiums high.
As the 2008 hurricane season comes to a close, Floridians can breathe easier.
Elevation checks a rising business for insurers
Kris Slosser’s land surveying company has three employees and a lucrative new focus – elevation certificates.
Price-gouging investigations ongoing
McCollum and Bronson continue probing gas-price increases after Hurricane Ike
In September, Florida was hit with a market storm as Hurricane Ike grew in the Gulf of Mexico and approached landfall in Texas.
City looks to FEMA to reimburse for Wilma cleanup
Three years after Hurricane Wilma ripped up Fort Lauderdale Is your Fort Lauderdale restaurant clean? – Click Here.’s high-priced beach lifeguard stands and ran up an estimated $5.6 million in what they considered insurable damage, commissioners have settled with the insurance company for $1.6 million.
Storm strategy working in Port Orange
When hurricanes hit in 2004, flooding damaged roughly 200 homes in the Cambridge Basin.
Thirty-four of those homes had a history of flooding several times.
Months later, Tropical Storm Fay still lingers
It’s been more than three months since Tropical Storm Fay drenched Central Florida, leaving a trail of flooded homes and washed-out roads. The water’s gone, but as the hurricane season concludes, disrupted families are still trying to figure out what to do with their unlivable, moldy homes.
Floridas number of uninsured children climbs
Nearly 19 percent or 797,000 children in Florida do not have health insurance the second highest percentage in the country and experts expect the number to rise as more parents are laid off, according to a report released this week.
Computer glitch may be reason for enrollment drop in disadvantaged kids’ insurance program
The state insurance program for disadvantaged children switched companies in May to handle premium collections and other document processing. As could be expected, problems arose.
COLUMN: Stay smart if buying insurance via Web
One of Florida’s newest home insurers charges among the lowest prices by selling directly over the phone and Web and by not pushing unnecessary coverage.
Doctors, patients upset as insurers push them to use cheaper drugs
Health insurers have long promoted switching from brand-name medicines to cheaper generics, but now more of them are going farther: urging people to take different drugs altogether.
A half-dozen insurers recently sent letters to tens of thousands of South Florida patients taking brand names, saying coverage will halt or co-payments will increase Jan. 1. The companies suggest people ask their doctors about changing to cheaper drugs to save up to 80 percent.
A year after many local governments yanked their money out, Florida’s local government investment pool has made improvements. But investors still fear they won’t recoup their funds.
Last fall, a state investment fund in which counties, cities and other local agencies parked extra cash temporarily was the largest in the country, at $26.1 billion.
Florida 9th Lowest In DUI Deaths
Count Florida among states with a low percentage of deaths from drunken driving.
How quickly did Florida’s once bright economy turn gloomy? The state led the nation in job growth in 2005 and now leads the nation in job losses. After five years of double-digit increases in housing starts and price increases, it’s now second in the nation in foreclosure filings, with 444,000 homeowners in default, according to industry researcher RealtyTrac.
Growth won’t pay the bills in Florida
For the dozen state economists huddled around a table this month to fine-tune Florida’s annual revenue forecast, something was different and disturbing.
Florida lawmakers seek local economic safeguards
With Florida foreclosures skyrocketing and unemployment rising above the national average, lawmakers are scrambling to plug a $2 billion budget hole as the economy continues to spiral.
The most dire fiscal crisis in decades, and some creative word play, could lead Florida’s lawmakers to join the rest of the nation in raising taxes on cigarettes.
Many think property-tax reform still needs work
To Marvin Miller’s way of thinking, the job has not been done on Florida’s property-tax system.
EDITORIAL: In gambling fight, Florida outplayed
The Seminole Tribe has upped the ante in the fight over expanded gambling in defiance of the Florida Supreme Court. By rolling out blackjack and other table games at Tampa’s Seminole Hard Rock Casino earlier this month, the Seminoles are betting no one will stop them even though the court invalidated the compact they signed with Gov. Charlie Crist in 2007.
Fla. Battle Over Auto Emissions to Continue
Manufacturers to try to block new rules for cleaner, more efficient cars.
American automakers will return to Washington next week to plea for $25 billion in federal aid, promising to use the money to set their ailing industry on a new course.
State legislators, some newly elected, eye 2010 political race
Just a few hours after Rep. Steve Crisafulli took the oath as a new member of the Florida House, he did something decisive, forward-looking and utterly predictable.
Ausman sues state over primary voting
The fight over Florida’s presidential primary has taken a new turn, and a Democratic activist from Tallahassee is back in federal court.
Gaetz says no to public funds for political ads
The North Okaloosa Fire District’s governing board failed twice this year to convince voters to give it more money.
But a tactic the board used to try to sway district voters before the Nov. 4 referendum may lead to a change in state law.
Lawsuits still loom for Vern Buchanan
Several lawsuits that dogged U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan during his successful re-election campaign will continue to do so into the new year.
Biomass firm may take plant elsewhere
A company that is proposing to build a controversial biomass gas electric plant for Tallahassee-Leon County is now leaning toward taking the project elsewhere, a public-relations consultant for Biomass Gas & Electric told the Tallahassee Democrat on Sunday.
Climate change increases problems for Florida reefs
Despite new federal protections, Elkhorn Coral may disappear from the waters off the coast of South Florida
The last, largest stands of ancient elkhorn coral survive in shallow waters off North Key Largo, where rough seas sometimes expose thick golden branches reaching toward the sunlit surface.
New Medicaid Rules Allow States to Set Premiums and Higher Co-Payments
The rule, published Tuesday in the Federal Register, is expected to save money for the federal government and the states. But public health experts and even some federal officials predicted that many low-income people would delay or forgo care because of the higher charges.
Federal Regulation Unlikely To Pass In 2009, FDIC’s Chair Tells AIA Directors
Congressional approval of federal regulation for insurance appears unlikely for 2009, and prospects for an optional federal charter in the long term are dim-particularly for property-casualty firms, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. indicated in a private briefing to p-c industry executives.
Dinallo: Don’t Make AIG Poster Child In Campaign For Federal Regulation
New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo agreed that some sort of national insurance regulation is likely on the horizon, but he urged that American International Group not be made into a poster child to support such a shift, and said he opposes an optional federal charter system.
Electronic Health Records May Lower Malpractice Settlements: Study
Use of electronic health records (EHRs) may help reduce paid malpractice settlements for physicians, according to a new study.
Public Sector Reports Explosion in Workers Compensation, Liability Claims
Liability and workers compensation claims against the public sector are multiplying at an unprecedented pace, according to a report from a tracking database maintained by a risk management research organization.
New North Carolina Insurance Chief Agrees Beach Plan Needs Help
North Carolina’s new insurance chief agrees with insurance industry critics that the state’s backup wind insurance pool, known as the Beach Plan, needs shoring up.
Secretary Paulson Remarks on Strategies for Use of the Remaining TARP Funds
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the current state of the U.S. economy, our implementation of the financial rescue package and strategies for use of the remaining TARP funds.
Good afternoon, everyone. I thank you all for your active participation in today’s first-ever, U.S. government-wide anti-kleptocracy outreach event to the NGO community.
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