Fla. House and Senate Expected to Meet Through Weekend to Merge Bills

By | January 19, 2007

  • January 19, 2007 at 10:00 am
    WALTER JENKINS says:
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    as a rep of metlife auto and life i can tell you that reinsurance gets quite expensive when you show your reinsurance carriers that you paid out two dollars in claims during \’04 & \’05 for every one dollar in premium that you collected. that is why met stopped writing homes and now we as a state might loose them if these screwed up plans take effect.

    the cost of liviing in florida should not be a national cost. it should be a statewide cost. the entire state of florida gets struck by storms not just south florida. so why is the code to build homes not the same everywhere in florida. makes no sense!! make a uniform code statwide, then the cost of living in florida should be spread across every resident of the state not just on the residents of dade broward and palm beach counties. why should two same size homes same distance to the coast one in Duval county one in Dade county same year of construction be 70% less expensive in duval than is in dade. I\’ll tell you why, bc in \’04 dade and broward didnt experience a direct hit from any hurricanes however more claims came out of these two counties than every other county combined in the state. well unfortunately the majority crime in the state also occurs here in the tri county state, but likewise a majority of the states revenues come from tourism of this location and orlando. so do you chastise the hand that feeds us because of some bad apples?

    lets see what happens

    In my professional oppinion there needs to be a statewide building code so that insures can treat florida as a whole and spread the risk over everyone who wants to live in this climatical paradise.

    Dont want to shovel snow and break bones on ice, we will have to suffer and pay higher insurance rates till insurance rates level again(assuming more seasons like \’06). on the other hand lets say we experience more storms,…..just like we as neighbors responded to katrina victims, ivan victims, charlie victims etc… lets respond in advance to our insurance rate victims and assume some risk statewide in advance to those in need.

    Good night and God bless.

  • January 19, 2007 at 12:51 pm
    Glenn says:
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    How can Florida Legislature let MetLife Auto and Home pull out of the state?

  • January 19, 2007 at 1:07 am
    Humor says:
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    What is wrong with the folks in FL? I just sold my condo because it makes no sense to live there. On one hand, the Feds tell us 14 years of storms; on the other, the State agrees that premiums are too low and then pass a 25% reduction to stay in office; one leg thinks it is a problem the Feds should solve… let the rest of the country pay so Florida folks can afford to live in Florida and on the other leg, they want insurance companies to stay and lose money.

    Is there a solution? What happens when the oceans raise 20 feet or more? Will the FL folks expect those of us who moved to high ground to pay that cost, too?

  • January 19, 2007 at 1:30 am
    Tired in Florida says:
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    Your right Humor. There are still some of us who have lived here their entire lives and who are the average person. Everything has gotten out of whack over the last 5 to 10 years. The average person cannot hardly afford to live here, pay taxes and insure a home (if they can find one now that they can afford). I do not know what all the rich people will do when the working class cannot live here anymore.

  • January 19, 2007 at 5:48 am
    JR says:
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    Glenn, the question you should ask is \”If insurance is so lucrative why would these carriers be leaving?\” the answer is obvious, it is NOT lucrative and Met life auto and home is making the decision that dozens and dozens of other companies have already made, and that is that they can sell policies for a lot less in Montana and still make more money over the long term. And the regulation and legislative BS is out of control. The fine folks in Florida are about to see just how bad politicians can screw up their lives, you think insurance is expensive now? just wait until the state government is the only insurance left.

  • January 21, 2007 at 11:54 am
    TM says:
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    I have to disagree with your comments. The real problem lies in the homes that were built prior to these new building codes. There are more of these than homes than the ones that are built to code. So are we now going to ask the consumers to pay more money to update these homes? This is why there is a problem now insuring older homes. The cost to meet these building codes have skyrocketed. The price of building materials have skyrocketed. Maybe this is what we need to take a look at. Maybe we need to loosen up on the requirements. For example-Allstate non renewed a huge book of their clients-working on some of these clients they have been insured with Allstate for 20 or more years and have never filed a claim. Why are they now having to struggle to find alternative coverage and along with finding out that they have to pay for inspections etc to try to get insurance with another company that is now twice the premium they had been paying and possibly even finding out that they could not get insurance do to some small underwriting condition. Where did there investment into Allstate go? If no claims were filed but they were paying in premium for many years what happened? Was it paid out for someone elses claim? We file more auto insurance claims in our agency than home claims, why is auto insurance so easily attainable. Is it because of a very broad multi tiering where people with accidents and tickets have to pay a higher premium? Maybe this is a better solution: Multitiering homeowners policy based off of claims paid out or filed. Maybe we need to curtail the storm chasing lawyers who tried to get a claim paid on a homeowners policy when it is a pretty clear cut flood claim. Maybe federalize wind, earthquake and etc like we do flood. How does Insurers that provide coverage in California handle mudslides and earthquakes? To alienate auto carriers that are not selling home insurance in Florida would be shooting ourselves in the foot. I think that the offer of auto coverage is still a friendship offer and once the initial scare of hurricanes where off they will come back. I hope our politicians are serious about this-I hope you are putting aside your anger to look at real long term solutions.



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