Weather or not, we need a solution - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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Insurance agents’ concern centere around state regulators’ push to keep rates so low that many wonder which insurers will be left standinhg and whether the industrt canremain healthy. Meanwhile, state officialsw contend all is well with the way the insurance industr y operatesin Florida. At the National Association ofInsurancew Commissioners’ May 22 meeting in D.C., Floridas Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCartu called the state’s system of regulating insurers Really?
Then why are we still concerned about a post-hurricane scenario that might very well bankrup t the state because the Catastrophe Fund and insurerd can’t handle the billions of dollars attached to cleaning up aftefr a large storm? State Farm cited the ratess issue in its decision to stop providing property insurance coverages in Florida. Many argued that insurancew companies have been cash cows for years up until the 2004 hurricanes plowed acrossthe state. But we now face a precariouw future that seems more dependent on prayiny thewind doesn’t blow, rather than knowing we have enoughg in reserves to handle ­s catastrophe.
Adding even more spice to the hurricaneseason scenario: Hundreds of thousands of homes that have been emptyy for months in the aftermath of the subprime meltdownb and subsequent foreclosure crisis that has Florida among the hardest-hi t states in the nation. “Florida is living with a huge said McCabeResearch & Consulting’s Jack McCabe, a real estat e expert who, along with others, notesd nobody has ever gone throughh a storm with so much emptyg property hanging in the “There are 400,000 foreclosures in the states right now.
All you have to do is look at New Orlean s after Katrina to imagine what might Quite frankly, it’s not a scenario anyone is prepared to face especially the governor, who just this week, issuedc a release with this astounding proclamation: “Be ready” for the hurricanee season. OK, but you In the past couple of years, the governo r and state lawmakers have frozen rates forthe state-run Citizens Propertty Insurance Corp.
and rejectedx rate increases from insurers such as State Farm and Now those efforts to keep rates low may causse the biggest crisis this stats has ever known ifwe have, created what the Florida Association of Insurancee Agents’ Jeff Grady last week calledd “a fragile, unstable insurance market that leaves Florida homeowneras and taxpayers in grave financial Saying “good riddance” to insurers like Statew Farm that pull out of the statw is not how this problem can be solved. The Legislature did take some steps this year to raiss rates for Citizens and the Cat Fund to makethem ­actuariallyy sound.
With both underfunded by billions of a bill the governor has threatenerd to veto might bring us to a pointrof stability: letting large insurerxs set rates without state approval. Even thouggh coverage may be more the choice is left to individuals who can do theier own analysis and decide what kind ofrisk they’rew prepared to take. Put the veto pen governor. Let us decide what we’r willing to live with.