Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater Calls for Personal Injury Protection Reform in Letter to Floridians

In the August 19, 2011 edition of the Florida Department of Financial Services’ weekly eNewsletter, “Dollars & Sense,” Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater published a letter to Floridians in which he expresses his commitment to fighting automobile insurance fraud in the State.

CFO Atwater’s letter is reprinted below.  To view the complete “Dollars & Sense” newsletter, click here.

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Dear Fellow Floridians:

When I decided to run for CFO, I wrote down a pledge to my fellow Floridians that I would follow if they gave me the honor of serving them in this role. Now, more than eight months into the job, I often look back at this pledge to make sure I’m delivering on my promises.

One of those promises was to fight fraud, particularly insurance fraud that has become an epidemic in our state and is costing billions of dollars each year. At this week’s Cabinet meeting, I was grateful to have the opportunity to discuss one of the most pervasive and egregious forms of fraud impacting Floridians, Personal Injury Protection fraud.

Insurance fraudsters and criminal enterprises have learned how to game Florida’s PIP system and every honest Floridian with a car in the driveway ends up paying. For example, in 2008 a 40-year-old driver in Tampa with an unblemished driving record was paying $480 in PIP premium, and today this same driver is paying nearly $870 for the same coverage – that’s an 81 percent increase.

Now is the time to stop throwing consumers to the wolves and work together on meaningful PIP reforms that will give honest Floridians the rate relief they deserve.

Jeff Atwater
Chief Financial Officer
State of Florida

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