It?s a simple idea to contract with businesses to offer its services at a low, fixed cost, similar to the agreements negotiated between insurance companies and doctors. It isn?t an insurance plan, but it looks a lot like one.

Businesses pay a monthly cost of $35 per employee, which gives employees unlimited access to Crucial Care services for a $35 co-pay per visit.

That means a CAT scan would cost $35 versus $2,000 or more elsewhere. Lab work and treatment for conditions as serious as a heart attack or a car accident cost $35. Minor ailments traditionally covered in urgent care clinics like the flu, ear infections and cuts also cost $35.

Simply form to apply.

The state earned the dismal rating – the lowest possible – after a national study compared the insurance environments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only four other states fared as bad.

Fla. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, and Fla. Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, fittingly unveiled the report card midday on Monday in Tallahassee while Florida senators grilled insurance executives in another wing of the capitol complex.

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Allstate had not immediate reaction but is expected to go to court to try and overturn this ban.

The suspension affects only new policies by the state’s second-largest auto insurance group, including Encompass and Allstate Floridian. Those with current home and auto policies are not affected. Neither are renewals of existing policies. Allstate has 2 million customers in Florida.

The order is in retaliation for Allstate’s refusal to turn over records subpoenaed by McCarty’s Office of Insurance Regulation. The investigation began as an inquiry into whether Allstate and other insurers conspired to pump up hurricane rates in Florida despite legislation intended to bring homeowners relief.

McCarty also wants Allstate to turn over what’s called the McKinsey Report, a consultant’s report from 1992 that suggested Allstate use a computer system called Colossus to generate auto injury claims payments based not on losses but on profit goals.

To date, Allstate has refused to release the records, including to a Missouri judge who has imposed a $25,000-a-day fine against the company.

It is about time that someone in Florida Government took steps to stop the insurance companies improper actions against Florida residents. Keep up the good work Mr. McCarty.

About Mr. McCarty: Three years into his tenure as Florida’s first appointed insurance commissioner, Kevin McCarty has cemented his reputation as an innovator utilizing technology to improve the regulatory process, as a fierce defender of seniors and historically discriminated minorities, and as a national leader who is forging a coalition to implement a national catastrophe strategy.

As usual, just like gas, and power, and other industries, insurance is quick to raise the rates but it takes months, sometimes years, to see it come back down when the economic indicators say it should.

Because of this a special Senate panel threatened Thursday to subpoena leading insurance industry executives to explain why some Florida consumers have not seen savings on their property insurance bills. The lawmakers are frustrated at the delay in getting savings back to the state’s consumers.

‘It’s time for the fork to meet the grits,’ said Sen. Bill Posey, the Rockledge Republican who chairs the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee. ‘We need to make sure this stuff is rolled back as far as it needs to be.’

Posey spoke at a news conference announcing the special Senate panel that will include half of the Senate’s 40 members. It will be co-chaired by Sens. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, and Steve Geller, D-Cooper City. Lawmakers said they intended to put industry executives under oath during testimony before the panel.

“Maybe I feel more strongly about this because of what I went through as mayor. I don’t even know how to describe Sept. 11. I don’t know if catastrophe is even the right word,” Giuliani said. “There’s no possible way we could have gotten through that alone. No possible way.”

A national catastrophe fund is a top federal priority for Gov. Charlie Crist and two Democratic congressmen from Florida, Ron Klein and Tim Mahoney, have a bill that passed the House which would create a the backup fund in hopes of making property insurance more affordable and accessible.

“I more than most realize how important it was to us to have federal help, federal backup,” Giuliani said during a town hall meeting at a senior center. “Look, it’s going to be there because of the kind of people we are. We might as well try to organize it in a sensible way.”

The banking executive drew applause from the room of representatives by suggesting insurance companies need to state up front what they’ll give back to consumers in exchange for their own demands.

“We can’t keep giving favors to insurance companies and have them stick our nose in it 10 days after the bill is passed,” Sink said, referring to State Farms’ rate hike filing on the heels of favorable insurance reform legislation last spring.

“It can’t be a one-way street any longer.”

The entire article can be read at Florida Today.

USAA’s 200,000 Florida residential insurance policyholders won’t get hit with a rate increase as high as the company wanted after state regulators rejected its request for an average statewide hike of 40 percent.

The Office of Insurance Regulation’s denial said the company failed to provide enough evidence to support the losses it said it could expect and didn’t justify the profits it was seeking.

“During the public hearing we heard from many policyholders whose household budgets are extremely strained by rising property insurance premiums,” said Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty, in a statement. “If we are asked to approve even higher rates, we must demand that the request is fully justified, and that is just not the case with this filing.

The question to ask at this point is where were these regulators for the past 3 or more years. Is the Governor putting pressure on the OIR to not allow increases so that the Republicans campaigning will have a better chance? We will have to see if there are any request after the election and see the results.

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