Two years in the past, with insurance coverage prices skyrocketing, Florida legislators referred to as a particular session, vowing to offer reduction.
Their plan was shady from the second they introduced it.
The Republican lawmakers who management the state had spent years ignoring warnings from trade consultants who had begged them to spend critical time on this difficult concern, opting as a substitute to wage tradition wars with everybody from Disney to tug queens. But now that the insurance coverage disaster was evident and voters had been getting mad, lawmakers introduced they’d maintain a particular session on this extremely advanced concern that lasted all of 5 days. Drunk spring breakers spend extra time in Cancun.
Orlando Sentinel
Scott Maxwell is an Orlando Sentinel columnist.
Making issues much more suspect, their “reform” plans consisted of primarily serving to the insurance coverage trade — not householders.
The principle factor I famous on the time was that GOP legislators had been doing all types of economic favors for insurance coverage corporations, however offering completely no ensures that any of the trade financial savings would trickle right down to shoppers.
Properly, unsurprisingly, they haven’t. Because the South Florida Solar Sentinel reported this previous weekend, the typical insurance coverage premium in Florida has elevated for 9 consecutive quarters since Gov. Ron DeSantis signed this “reform” measure into regulation.
In different phrases: You bought conned.
I feel most of you already know this. Once I took to social media Monday to ask if anybody’s prices had dropped within the final two years, the responses went one thing like this:
No.
No.
Hell no.
My newest renewal had a premium enhance of 85%.
The truth is, of the primary 38 responses, just one individual mentioned they’d seen a lower.
These anecdotal responses had been backed by the chilly, onerous details that reporter Ron Hurtibise uncovered when he studied the newest stats, concluding that common premium costs have jumped 31% since Florida enacted “reform.”
And there’s little purpose to imagine prices will drop going ahead. Why? As a result of a lot of the similar legislators who gave the insurance coverage trade exactly what it needed two years in the past — with out guaranteeing worth reductions for householders — had been re-elected.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from Donald Trump, who took to his social media web site, Fact Social, to declare one of many payments the “greatest insurance coverage firm BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance coverage Corporations, IN HISTORY.”
It has been mentioned that, in politics, voters get what they deserve. The issue is that the remainder of us get what they deserve as nicely.
The very best factor that may be mentioned about Florida’s post-“reform” insurance coverage market is that premium will increase could have slowed a bit and that extra insurers have entered the market, thanks partly to lawmakers spending extra on reinsurance applications the businesses can faucet.
However we’ve seen no proof that premiums are persistently dropping. The truth is, the newest quarterly report confirmed a good bigger common coverage worth hike than the earlier two.
Now, to be honest, the value of just about all the pieces has gone up in recent times, from bread to take advantage of. However right here’s the distinction: Authorities didn’t do huge favors for the bread and milk industries the best way Florida did for insurance coverage.
The governor and Legislature made it more durable for householders to sue their insurance coverage corporations when these corporations deny them advantages — a dream come true for corporations hoping to stiff prospects.
And take a wild guess what occurred subsequent? We learn stories that insurance coverage corporations had been denying householders’ claims extra typically in Florida than anyplace else. What a shock.
There have been reliable issues about Florida being the land of fraudulent claims, driving up everybody’s prices. The issue is that Florida lawmakers by no means actually aggressively cracked down on the fraudsters. They went after you, the home-owner.
I’ve lengthy argued the state ought to massively beef up fraud investigation and prosecutions. As an alternative, the governor and Legislature made it more durable for householders to sue for advantages to which they had been legitimately entitled.
Lawmakers argued that, if insurance coverage corporations spent much less on lawsuits, they may move these financial savings alongside to shoppers. It was trickle-down fiction.
The truth is that tackling Florida’s expensive insurance coverage issues is difficult and dear. This state is principally a bullseye for hurricanes and uniquely susceptible to flooding and rising seas.
The one actual approach to drive down prices can be for the state to spend extra.
Both by increasing the state-run Residents Insurance coverage program in order that it turns into one thing like Medicare for property insurance coverage, a state-subsidized program most everybody can entry.
Or the state can use extra tax {dollars} to subsidize the non-public insurance coverage market much more. However these items to the trade must be accompanied by calls for for charge reductions — one thing Florida lawmakers have by no means demanded of their insurance-lobbyists buddies prior to now, which is why most owners’ prices proceed to rise.
Scott Maxwell is an Orlando Sentinel columnist. Contact him at smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com.
