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A reluctant insurance warrior

The antiques dealer followed her mother into Homeowners Against Citizens and became its president.

By TOM ZUCCO
Published October 12, 2006

	[Times photos: Zach Boyden Holmes]
	Ginny Stevans, the unpaid president of Homeowners Against Citizens, says: "Everybody is jumping on the insurance bandwagon, but when we ask (politicians) specific questions, they stand as far away from you as they can."
	From left, Homeowners Against Citizens' vice president Chris Kowalczyk, of Hudson, Webmaster Vic Deneuve, of Hudson, and treasurer Debby Zolobkowski, of Port Richey, hold a board meeting at president Ginny Stevans' home in New Port Richey on Wednesday afternoon.
	Town Hall meeting tonight

Ginny Stevans doesn't need this. Someone else could be the president of Homeowners Against Citizens, the 700-member grass roots group that's fighting a statewide battle to rein in soaring property insurance rates.

The job doesn't pay anything and takes up huge chunks of her time - time that could be better spent on her antiques business, and helping her husband complete the details that will allow the couple to adopt a little girl from China.

But maybe, she said, she does need the 100 e-mails a day and the dozens of the phone calls from strangers desperate for help.

"It hurts me to my bones to see what's happening in the state," Stevans, 38, said this week. "I grew up in New Port Richey - around retirees and working-class people. And I've seen how hard they've had to struggle with their homeowner's insurance.

"Sometimes," she added, "I can't sleep at night thinking about it."

When the Insurance Crisis Town Hall Meeting gets under way at 8 p.m. today at the Hilton Carillon in north St. Petersburg, Stevans will be among five panelists who will try to come up with solutions to the problems facing homeowners and business owners.

She may even find herself seated next to Citizens' board chairman Bruce Douglas.

"I'm anxious to meet him," Stevans said, adding that she and Douglas probably share the same concern for the plight of homeowners.

The president of Homeowners Against Citizens doesn't have Citizens Property Insurance. Stevans is an antiques dealer who works from home. Her husband, Mark, is a carpenter.

After State Farm doubled their insurance premium this year, she understood what others were feeling. Her mother got involved with HAC when the group was formed last winter, and told her the group needed a secretary.

Stevans got the job, and in August, she was elected president.

Like many Florida homeowners, she has given herself a crash course in the workings of the state's insurance industry, and the politics that go along with it.

"What really bothers me are the political ads on TV," she said. "Everybody is jumping on the insurance bandwagon, but when we ask politicians specific questions, they stand as far away from you as they can."

Still, she tries not to blame either party for the crisis.

"It's not a Republican or Democratic thing," she said. "It's more about just getting people in office who care about us."

She hears an occasional complaint that the group is sensationalizing the problem, that the crisis is overstated. But what worries her most, she said, is a growing sense of futility. "People really feel defeated," she said. "They feel it doesn't matter how they vote. Nothing will change.

"But I don't have a defeatist attitude. I can't.

"This isn't the time for that."

Tom Zucco can be reached at zucco@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8247.

[Last modified October 11, 2006, 23:46:44]