Posted On: April 26, 2006, 2:08 pm CDT

Posted By: Hmmm...

While I might agree that this was a "cash-cow" for Poe (he still gets away with some very LARGE take-out bonuses) and that rates were a part of the issue, this is moreover a Harvard Business School case-study for what is wrong with the P&C market in Florida.

You have an understaffed, poorly managed claims organization. You have sub-standard telephony and systems. You have a revolving door of CFO's who can't tell a yellow book from the yellow pages. And you have underwriters who ignore the basic tenets of spreading the risk.

What it all adds up to is another headache for the State, it's administrators, FIGA, Poe Financial's agency force, Citizens and most importantly the policyholders who were unlucky enough to have a policy (or doubly so, a claim!) with one of these three carriers. It never ceases to amaze me (and I've been in this business for over 20 years now) how, in an industry that already has received more black eyes than all of Mike Tyson's opponents combined, we manage to keep punching ourselves in the face.

At some point we'll hopefully figure out that it feels so much better when we stop.