The Insurance Reform Hearing
Thursday October 12, 2006 was a big day for
HAC members and Board. Our day started by being on the road at 6:30am
heading toward the anticipated Governors Reform Committee Meeting. When we
arrived there were a few familiar faces including Pasco County
Commissioner Jack Mariano, State Representative John Legg, Michael Cox
(who is running for Pasco County Commissioner) and a few of our HAC
members.
The way it was set us is that the Reform
Committee was broken down into 3 groups in different rooms where then
people could sign up to speak to them. We tried to all get separate rooms
but ended up being in only two rooms. Chris (VP), Vic (Webmaster), Debby
(Treasurer), Wil (Membership Director), Robert Penn (HAC member) and
myself got an opportunity to speak.
One of our first questions/comment was to ask
why the Reform Committee had not responded to the requests HAC has sent
them. We have not only e-mailed “each” of them both the Reform Committee
and the Advisory Committee. but have sent out certified letters to each of
them. Just as with our letters and e-mails we got no response. We then
asked questions and made several suggestions to the board, most which
obviously fell upon deaf ears.
After an hour of hearing from individuals we
were directed to another room for the official board meeting. For about
the first hour we heard from Steve Burgess, “Consumer Advocate” who is a
“paid” advocate for the State of Florida. We were all a little shocked
that he considers himself as someone who represents the “general public” I
really got very little from the hour speech he gave other than the fact
that he has 8 people working with him and a budget of $900,000 and needs
more qualified people to assist him.
 After his speech the Reform Committee moved
forward to a lengthy discussion about whether to change the non-renewal
from the current 90 days to either 6 months or one years notice. (I
thought this committee was formed to help find solutions to the “high”
insurance premiums, not to discuss how long to give them to cancel your
policy!) They discussed prohibiting insurance companies non-renewal solely
due to the age of the dwelling but didn’t get much further than talking
about it. There were other good discussions but everything that came up
with a possible good outcome was torn apart by other members of the board.
I must also note that throughout this meeting most of the time at least a
third of the committee members were working/playing on their PDA’s, and
chatting among each other, no one speaking had the undivided attention of
the committee. In my opinion this committee was set up to make it “look”
like they were interested in helping people but either they need a
different committee or need more committed members that are really looking
for ways to solve this crisis.
I would like to add that toward the end of the
meeting Senator Mike Fasano finally got to speak on his proposal, the
Insurance Premium Relief Grant Program. It would give a small amount of
one time relief of either $500 or $1,000 and could help between ½ million
people to 1 million low to moderate-income families with a fund that is
just sitting around doing nothing. Even though this is just a small
band-aid at least he wants to offer some immediate help and that’s more
than I can say for a lot of them!
At the end of this committee meeting there
were no more solutions and only clear evidence that the high rates were
here and only getting worse. We learned at this meeting who we need to
target for needed relief. Clearly we need to be focusing our efforts on
the Florida Legislature as it is them who enacts all the absurd laws that
Citizens has to follow and they are the ones we need to focus on to change
the laws.
We will be in contact with these people as
soon as the election is over, so they can start implementing plans before
they take office. It is the Legislature who has allowed the insurance
industry to run Florida however they please.
The Town Hall Meeting
Next we were all off to the evening event where I, Ginny Stevans
HAC’s President was going to be involved in a Town Hall Meeting with Florida’s
Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty, Citizens Property Board Chairman Bruce
Douglas, Vice President of Florida Insurance Council, Sam Miller, and the
Executive Director of the Florida Consumer Action Network, Bill Newton.
 I went prepared to do battle with Kevin McCarty and Bruce Douglas
and found out a few facts. I didn’t realize that Bruce Douglas with Citizens is
a “volunteer” position, not a paid position. (I still don’t know why ANYONE
would volunteer for a position on Citizens!) And both were willing to meet with
HAC to discuss some of our implementations of changes, of course we will see
about that.
I was blown away with the opening statement Sam Miller made that
“The insurance industry isn’t pricing people out of their homes” I wonder what
state HE is living in! (Just a note, last week there were 4100 homes in
foreclosure in my county of Pasco, this week there are 5,132). Mr. Miller
went on to say that the insurance rates are not yet high enough to cover the
estimated risk that Florida is facing in the next 15 years. He would not comment
on the fact that the predictions for this past year were off and we haven’t seen
any discounts for that or the fact that there were 25 to 30 years of virtually
no storms and where did those collected premiums go to. Or the fact that the
insurance industry has reported record profits ( insurance
made a record $44.8-billion profit last year even after accounting for the
claims of policyholders wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and the other big storms
of 2005, according to the firms' filings with state regulators.)
This past year, or the fact that their CEO’s make
24 million PLUS a year! This man’s arrogance was astonishing to say the least!
During the question and answer session Mr. Miller was asked by a homeowner why
she could still get State Farm to insure her home in Pensacola when they would
no longer insure her home in Clearwater (noting her home in Clearwater was NOT
on the water) his answer to her was to SELL her home in Clearwater and buy 10
homes in Pensacola!
I wish I had been given more time to talk about
solutions to the insurance crisis we are in. We are looking forward to the new
year and hopefully new faces in power that are willing to help the people in
which they were elected to serve. If nothing else, the Town Hall Meeting was
another way to let the legislature know that the people of Florida want relief
and are speaking up to “City Hall”, so to speak. I can tell you that HAC will be
aggressively in the faces of the future leaders of this state until we reach
reasonable affordable insurance premiums!
Thank you all for your continued support and as
always if you have suggestions please feel free to e-mail me or any of the board
members. We are all working very hard and will continue our fight for you, the
people of Florida!
Additional thoughts
about the meetings from
Chris
Kowalczyk, HAC Vice-President.
On Thursday HAC attended both events and I would like to share my opinion of the
morning meeting. By being able to speak to the Reform and Advisory committee, we
had a chance to make some very good points, but I would like to know “where we
all the people?” Because this is a continuing Insurance Crisis, there should
have been thousands there filling the rooms and the halls! I just don’t get it?
Is it because we don’t trust anyone anymore? Are the people of Florida saying "I
just don’t care anymore", or "let someone else deal with it". Or is it because
Florida's past voting experiences from the 2000 Presidential election make
them feel that politicians will do what ever they want anyway?
I realize that some important solutions were brought up in the task force
meetings, but I did not hear any VALID solutions for the homeowners that are now
losing their homes now due to the impact of rising insurance increases. We need
IMMEDIATE relief! There was no mention of any proposal to at least FREEZE the
rates now until this crisis is fixed.
Another thing is that everyone is expecting the governor to call a special
session sometime after the elections, most likely in December, I say to Mr. Jeb
Bush we can't wait that long! We need rate relief now, so we need a valid
session date announced ASAP. The longer we wait the more foreclosure we will
have, more people fearing to open there renewal envelopes, or fearing another
rent increase.
We need the support of all the people, so please, if your angry and fed up with
your rates, join HAC, and don’t give up. Don’t stay at home, get out and VOTE
this Nov. 7th and tell the government of Florida, we are not going to
take it anymore! We must fix and put an end to this insidious insurance crisis.
Chris Kowalczyk
Vice-President, H.A.C. Florida, Inc.
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