WASHINGTON--Florida's Republican Gov. Charles Crist said in atelevision interview yesterday that he intends to use his state'smove to an earlier primary election date to pressure presidentialcandidates into supporting a national catastrophe fund.

In an appearance on CNBC, Mr. Crist said also that he willcontinue to blast the insurance industry over home insurance rates."Sometimes these big industries can try to take advantage of ourpeople to their detriment, and that's not right," he said.

The governor recently supported legislation banning futureFlorida-only insurer subsidiaries by national carriers.

A national catastrophe fund could be helpful to Florida if thereis a serious event, which experts say the state is underreservedfor with its own cat fund and with its insurer of last resort.

Mr. Crist made his comments concerning insurance in response toa question from CNBC anchor Erin Burnett.

He was being interviewed in connection with his effort o getnearly half the nation's governors to sign a letter asking Congress"to investigate and remedy" surging gas prices. "We can't emphasizethis enough," Gov. Crist said. "They're up 50 percent since thebeginning of February."

Ms. Burnett, who commented that the governor has a 73 percentapproval rating in his state, touched off his comments on insurancewith questions concerning predictions from the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration yesterday of a severe hurricaneseason.

"What does that mean to the state of Florida?" she asked. "Imean, you already don't have Allstate really operating there or anyof the other major insurers."

Gov. Crist responded that "most major insurers, in fact, areoperating in the state of Florida, but they're operating now on alevel playing field where the consumer's rights are being heard,too, for the first time in a long time."

"And it's the right thing to do," he said. He added, "I'm soproud of the Florida Legislature," noting that the House Speaker,Marco Rubio, and "our Senate president, Ken Pruitt, led the chargeto be able to make sure that the insurance industry wasn't takingadvantage of Floridians any more."

He then said high insurance rates in areas of catastrophicstorms "is a national issue. It's an opportunity for us to push fora national catastrophic fund."

"We already have one [state catastrophe fund] in the state ofFlorida," he said. "And I know that candidates for president innext year's elections are talking about this because of somethingelse we have done that I think is smart in Florida: We moved up ourprimary.

"Our primary is now January 29th of 2008, and it's an importantthing to do, to get these kinds of issues that are not justimportant to Florida but to America on the front burner," Gov.Crist said.

Ms. Burnett responded by asking, "Isn't 'catastrophic,' though,just another way of saying, 'We're gonna have people who liveeither in the center of the state of Florida or somewhere like Iowaactually picking up the tab for people who choose to live on MiamiBeach and won't pay market rates for their insurance?'"

Gov. Crist responded, "I don't believe that's the right way tolook at it because if you ask people in Kansas about tornados,that's not exactly a coastal state, but they sure could [take]advantage from a national catastrophic fund. Or blizzards inMichigan or in the North."

He noted that "some of these storm predictions show that somemight go up to New Jersey or New York this year. You never knowwhere they're gonna come, or earthquakes in California, or fires,as we've had recently here in Florida and other states."

The governor explained, "What I think is important is thefederal government's gonna come in, anyway.

"Ultimately, they did in Katrina," he continued. "Why not do itin a smart fashion? Why not do it in a way where we can get thepremiums upfront, collect some interest on the money while it'sthere, and since the government's gonna come in, anyway, to protectus from these natural disasters, let's do it in a way that's smartand makes common sense."

While Gov. Crist and the legislature's initiatives haveapparently made him extremely popular in the state, insuranceindustry and state fiscal officials have called the policies agamble.

Florida has frozen rates for Citizens, its insurer of lastresort, increased the size of its Catastrophe Fund to provide cheapreinsurance to carriers, and moved to restrict the use of nationalinsurers' subsidiaries. A number of sources, including the state'schief financial officer, have called the moves an actuariallyunsound gamble.