My congratulations to National Underwriter and FloridaUnderwriter on this 25th anniversary issue. I have had continuousinvolvement with Florida's insurance scene and with the nationalscene for more than four decades, and I have always relied on theFlorida and National Underwriter magazines for their professionaland analytical approach in reporting each insurance crisis andissue of the day.

Many may not have known that when I began my career over 40years ago, I was a State Farm agent in Orlando. How ironic thattoday I am a part of an independent agency at a time when manyState Farm agents are considering a similar move, but for entirelydifferent reasons. To me, the starkest comparison of today'senvironment to the one that existed when I was Florida'sCommissioner can be found in the still unfolding saga of StateFarm. Frankly, the "good neighbor" company was revered throughoutFlorida and the nation for its competitiveness and efficiency. Icould not have imagined any circumstances that would lead to itpulling completely out of Florida's property market, much lesscircumstances that would lead its highly successful sales force toconsider becoming independent agents.

During the time I served as Florida's Insurance Commissioner,the crises we faced were much different than those of today.However, like the regulatory issues facing State Farm now, theywere equally challenging.

Our Sunset Challenge

Perhaps the most frustrating was the newly enacted Sunset Law ofthe early 1980s. It caused the review and rewrite of the entirestate insurance code as a means to "cleanse" the statutes ofunnecessary regulation. Sounds like a wonderful concept; however,the insurance code is the largest single section of Florida law —bigger even than the banking code or the criminal statutes. Under"sunset," a massive body of regulatory law would cease to exist ifnot affirmatively re-enacted by the Legislature.

As insurance commissioner, I was responsible for the revisionand promulgation of the rules pertaining to both the expiring lawsunder sunset and any newly enacted or amended laws after sunset.The challenge flowed from the fact that many of the traditional,and sometimes parochial statutes, would be open for pot shots fromany and all sides — at the same time! That prospect wasunprecedented in Florida legislative history.

Confirming my worst fears, trial lawyers began fighting torepeal Florida's no-fault auto insurance law; banks were fightingto eliminate the prohibition against their selling insurance; andthe laws relating to the funding, purpose, and operation of theDepartment of Insurance (OIR's predecessor), for which I wasresponsible, were also under attack from insurers convinced thatmany of their burdens could be relieved by curtailing thecommissioner's ability to oversee their operations.

Today, as an officer of the Florida Association of InsuranceAgents (FAIA), I have an entirely different perspective andappreciation for the burdens industry lobbyists must have facedunder the sunset of the Insurance Code. After all, each section ofthe Unfair Trade Practices Act was studied and dissected bylawmakers totally unfamiliar with its intent and application.Imagine today's lawmakers debating in numerous committee hearingsand on the floors of each legislative chamber issues such as theanti-rebating statute, the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association,the auto JUA, agent brokering, agent sharing of commissions, agentand agency licensing, the exchange of business statute, unfairinducements to purchase, prohibitions against free insurance, andthe propriety and desirability of allowing non-admitted insurers todo business in Florida.

Now imagine that debate and dissection of each of these topicsoccurring simultaneously. That was sunset! Never has there beensuch an assault on so many insurance laws as there was during thefirst full sunset of the Insurance Code in 1982 and 1983. In theend, it was comforting to see all the diverging interests cometogether, realizing that, as difficult as things were, they couldbe a whole lot worse if the Insurance Code were to entirely sunset.My earnest prayer is that Florida's Legislature, the industry, andinsurance regulators never have to go through that processagain.

Although sunset did not affect the provisions of Chapter 440,workers' compensation was, like today, also in need of reform. Ascommissioner, I joined with FAIA and other business organizationsin implementing the wage-loss concept. In the end, wage loss tookFlorida from being a state with arguably the highest premiums andthe lowest benefits to a state with the lowest premiums andbenefits comparable to those of the most liberal jurisdictions. Ofcourse, the concept of wage loss and other reforms from the early1980s eroded until the workers' compensation system was, onceagain, in need of overhaul. By 2003, I was no longer thecommissioner, but as an independent agent I was involved throughFAIA with the reforms necessary to reduce workers' compensationpremiums by almost 60 percent over the last four-and-a-halfyears.

The Liability Market Collapse

One other issue that comes to mind from my 12-year tenure asinsurance commissioner was the collapse of Florida's liabilitymarket. In the mid 1980s, rates were soaring, lawsuits were rising,and payouts were at record highs. Litigation concepts and termssuch as prevailing party attorney fees, bifurcation of trials,non-joinder, collateral sources, and joint and several liabilitywere beginning to pierce the threshold of public consciousness.

Meanwhile, insurance companies were abandoning Florida, and theliability crisis was impacting nursing homes, closing day-carecenters, and affecting other high-profile professions andbusinesses. The crowning blow was when Florida's only remainingmedical malpractice carrier announced it was leaving the state. Infact, it was the cresting of the liability crisis that led to thepassage of an excess profits law, the creation of the first MarketAssistance Plan, the establishment of an industry trade groupcalled the Florida Insurance News Service, alternative insurancemechanisms such as reciprocal insurers and the Florida medicalmalpractice JUA, and numerous laws regarding attorney fees,lawsuits, and the settlement practices of insurers. During theliability crisis of the mid 80s, Florida achieved nationalrecognition as a bell-weather state for insurance reform.

There were, however, negative reverberations. Nationallytelevised press conferences and attempts to gain "media spinadvantages" were quite common; national consumer advocates RalphNader and Bob Hunter both saw to that. They were in Floridafrequently, testifying before legislative committees andcontributing to the building of the worst insurance industry publicimage it had ever experienced. Frankly, that poor public perceptionlasted until the industry's sterling performance in the aftermathof Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. I'm sorry to say that today,thanks to some of the same consumer advocates and the politics ofsome elected officials and, perhaps the poor behavior of a fewindustry players, the insurance industry's image is once again atrecord low ebb.

One thing Florida's insurance commissioners have all come toknow is that the nature of insurance is catastrophe andcrisis-oriented. As an industry, insurance is either in crisis,just leaving a crisis, or on its way to a crisis. That is, afterall, what gave rise to the existence of our industry and professionin the first place. If lawmakers and the public could keep in mindthat each crisis is a reflection of society's ills or the inabilityof government to resolve its own deficiencies, our image and ourability to absorb the risks of America's and Florida's economicsystem would be markedly improved. In no small measure, FloridaUnderwriter magazine has been instrumental in bringing that messagehome.

Happy Birthday, Florida Underwriter.

Bill Gunter was elected to the Florida Senate in 1966, servinguntil 1972 when he was elected to the U.S. House ofRepresentatives, where he served until 1975. He was then electedFlorida's insurance commissioner, serving in that capacity fromNovember 1976 until January 1989. In 1983, his peers elected himpresident of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.He was named the "Most Effective Insurance Commissioner in theUnited States" by the National Insurance Consumers Organization in1988. He also served as president of the National Association ofState Treasurers in 1981, and received the group's TreasurerEmeritus award in recognition of his accomplishments. TheUniversity of Florida elected him to its Hall of Fame in 1956 andawarded him the Stephen C. O'Connell Distinguished Service Award in2004. He is currently chairman of the board of Rogers, Gunter,Vaughn Insurance, Inc., a Tallahassee-based independent insuranceagency, and chairman-elect of the Florida Association of InsuranceAgents.