I attended the local town hall meeting held at Merritt Island High School on Monday August 9th.  It was quite interesting and I wanted to comment a bit on it.  The meeting was sponsored by Bob Allen a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives representing District 32 and Florida Today which was represented by Matt Reed, Assistant Managing Editor.

Also on hand for the meeting were Steve Burgess, Florida’s insurance consumer advocate and Randy Johnson, a Republican state legislator from the Orlando area who is running for Florida’s chief financial officer position.

For some time I have been aware of the current insurance crisis in the state of Florida, but was not very active in the issue.  I have recently heard of the rate increases that were giving to insurance companies and was not happy about the issue, but did not give it a whole lot of thought and to be honest, do not know what my current home owners insurance rate is.  But after seeing a recent Florida Today Article that told the true story.  I have decided that it is very important for my self, as well as every Florida home owner and resident to get involved in this issue. 

There have been many recent issues of insurance companies getting extremely large rate increases to cover their losses for hurricane and other crisis.  They all claimed that they were at risk of going bankrupt and not provided insurance coverage to the citizens and businesses in Florida.  The Florida Today report told a different story that during the worst of the recent Hurricane seasons, the insurance companies were far from going bankrupt, they are turning profits.  Massive Profits.  To the tune of 12 Billion in 2004 and even turned a profit in the quarter that three hurricanes hit the state.

The Insurance companies are not here to help the citizens of the Florida, they are doing everything that they can to make sure that they do not have to pay you for claims.  They are trying to get laws passed that say that the companies and only the companies are the ones to decide when a claim should be paid.  They continue to threaten the state lawmakers with threats to pull out of the home owners insurance business in the state.  They have a insurance rate arbitration panel, stocked with former insurance execs making decisions on the rates.

At this time we must stay on top of our legislators, our governor and his cabinet, and any one else who has a influence in our laws and state regulations.  We do not have a choice in this matter.  We are required by law to have insurance on our homes if we have a mortgage.  Our representatives have an obligation to make sure that this required service, insurance, is available and affordable for all.  Stay tuned as we work to make this happen.