"They can't win in the legislature anymore, they can't win in the Cabinet anymore, so they're going to try the court system." So said Governor Charlie Crist last year when the industry felt forced to go to court to block an emergency order calling for a moratorium on the renewal and cancellation of policies during last year's hurricane season. Well it appears now that the legislative and executive branches of the government have decided to blur the separation of powers as spelled out in the constitution by taking up the activities of the judicial branch.
Such was the case when Senate President Ken Pruitt (R-Port St. Lucie) created a select committee and started subpoenaing insurance executives, while members started throwing around words like perjury. Evidently, having to certify by law a company's financial statement is no longer good enough. We now have to have what amounts to a public trial. And then there is the case of Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty who walked out on a scheduled two-day hearing on Allstate's reinsurance program and pulled the company's certificate of authority to write new business. As explained by McCarty, the carrier hasn't complied with a subpoena requesting a stack of documents, a move that caught the carrier by surprise, since it has produced more than 40,000 pages of information.
There is no doubt that the actions taken by the Senate and McCarty fall well within their scope of authority. And maybe at the end of the day they will lead to good outcomes. But a serious question is being raised as to how these actions, and especially the rhetoric, are contributing to the public good. For well over a year now, public officials have cast a harsh light on the industry, painting it as some kind of monolithic entity out of a Terry Gilliam movie, which is consumed by greed. At times, listening to Crist is like hearing a man engaged in a mythological struggle instead of what he should be doing: trying to find a measured solution to a public policy concern.
That there is conflict between public officials and regulated industries is as unremarkable as it is ubiquitous. That is why there are laws, codes, court decisions, and hundreds of other checks and balances to ensure the system works. It's called capitalism. But even the great trustbuster Teddy Roosevelt, as he tore down the monopolies of J. Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, knew the country needed steel and oil.
And Florida needs homeowners' insurance. For it is a matter of time before the hurricanes return, and it is the actions that are being taken today that will determine whether the private market and state can withstand the financial and personal toll the disasters will cause. And the disconcerting thought is that if the real and rhetorical divide between government and the industry is as divisive as it is today, how will it endure the stress and inspire the confidence that the state's citizens will need at that hour? For when the wind blows and Crist and others find themselves having to comfort citizens whose houses have been destroyed, saying that it is the fault of the big bad insurance companies will not be good enough.
As one long-time observer recently said, "The way the government and industry are talking, it's going to push both into a corner where it may take an act of God to pull each other back to the middle of the room." It is in everybody's interest that this is not the case and that the Senate, the industry, McCarty, and Allstate find a way to resolve the issues at hand without trying to throw each other to the wolves.
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