Posted On: February 19, 2007, 10:16 pm CST

Posted By: john

I like Oldsmobiles but GM chose to stop making them because there were not profitable. As long as Mr. Hood wants to tell companies to do business even when it isn't best for business, I wonder if he could stop GM from selling any profitable lines or cherry picking in Mississippi unitl they bring back the Oldsmobile line. I would also like a major airline to land in my town but they say it is to small. I don't think they should get to cherry pick either. However, I accept both of the above as good business practices not poor consumer policy. When businesses are forced to do what is good for the few at the expense of many it is poor policy. State Farm didn't just pack their bags and leave they are still taking care of 30% of the current homeowners in Mississippi. They just don't want to take on new business or further expose their current customer's until they know what the outcome of the court decisions in that state will be. I see no fault in a business wanting to protect all of it's current customer's in bad legal and political enviroment. If you think what Hood has planned is great you might want to look at Florida and the mess they are in. Mississippi should learn from Florida so they don't end up in such a big mess. Currently in Florida the State is the larges writer of new home, church and business insurance policies in the state. Most of the insurance companies that are left are shut down or have very limited capacity. The state, as an insurer, is doing such a good job in Florida they ran out of money in 2004 and 2005. So they let the state insurer tax all insured's with a home,church and business policy in Florida. The tax, which they call an assessment, was 6.8% of consumers 2006 total insurance premium for the states 2004 losses and 12% over the next ten years for the 2005 losses. This year they expanded the taxing authority of the State so they can assess your auto premium up to 10% as well. They must be pretty sure that the state run insurance company will fail again or they wouldn't have expanded the assessment to include auto premium. These taxes were on top of increases many customers had to pay for their own insurance policy some as high as 200% increases. It also doesn't matter what part of the state you live in, you paid the tax. So, if you support what Hood and the courts are doing in Mississippi, you can expect an insurance industry like that in Florida sooner than you want it. It sounds great to hear that an insurance company was punished until you realize you will be paying the bill. Hood wants to follow Florida's lead now and force auto carriers that write home insurance in other state to write it in Mississippi. If they don't they will have to stop writing auto insurance in the State. So far Florida doesn't know how many companies will leave the auto insurance market there because of this new law. Profit margins are not great in the auto market so if you must loose money on home insurance to write auto insurance will they stay? That is the questions that is yet to be answered. If you loose more on home insurance than you make on auto insurnce they will leave. Hood wants to follow the blind and put the consumers in Mississippi at risk. Wake up Hood you should be using dialog to work on a solution not pick a fight that leaves everyone hurt.