State Takeover Of Florida Wind Risk Proposed

An insurance advocacy group last week urged creation of a privately run state insurer to remove the private sector from providing hurricane insurance in Florida.

Americans For Insurance Reform issued a report asserting that with increasing numbers of carriers leaving the state, others threatening massive cancellations and skyrocketing prices, the time for fixing the current system has passed.

The group proposed creation of a privately run state insurer for the hurricane wind portion of homeowners' insurance coverage, with all of the wind business written by this entity.

“This would end low-risk cherry-picking by the insurers,” the report said.

Also, by competitive bids an insurer, or multiple insurers, would service the policies and would be responsible for claims adjustment after a hurricane occurred, the report said.

Private insurers would still sell homeowners coverage, excluding hurricane wind coverage, to wrap around coverage sold by the privately run state insurer.

“If writing only the hurricane wind portion of the coverage proves too narrow a spread, consideration should be given to using this approach to write the entire homeowners' insurance policy for all Floridians,” the report stated.

Sam Miller, executive director of the Florida Insurance Council, said that while his organization has taken no position on a state takeover of the hurricane business, the idea has been around for some time.

In general, he noted, the industry has said that the financing resources Florida has in place for hurricane losses at the moment would not generate sufficient funds to cover all Florida hurricane losses.

“Several insurers, during a workshop with House Democrats last month, said the concept might be a sound one, but many months of work would be necessary to determine if it actually would work,” Mr. Miller said.

A state commitment to charge actuarially sound rates would be a top prerequisite for a successful state-run plan, he added.

Joseph Annotti, senior vice president for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said that his initial reaction was that the AIR plan appears based on an “oversimplified 'government knows best' concept, one that has failed consumers around the world.”