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Rate relief is too little, 1/24

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published January 24, 2007

Does anyone really think a 10 percent decrease in homeowners insurance rates will help people who are retired, on fixed incomes or making minimum pay in a low-wage state that claims full employment? Tell that to people who are still unemployed and can't find decent work.

Yes, it will help for some. However, even with a 25 percent break on a $4,000 premium, that leaves $3,000. That's still not chicken feed for most average people. Then add your taxes, utilities, car insurance, and what is left?

Do you think their efforts leave you enough for health care or insurance? How about retirement? Need a new car or need to repair the old one? Do you have enough for your children's education?

Now that our legislators have spent the week arguing, the money and wealth-makers have begrudgingly given in for the sake of the people. Was it enough? In my opinion, they let the dragon of profits, greed and exploitation out of the pit and now they can't stop it. No matter what they do, it is too far gone and they are just now realizing this.

The answer in my opinion is to get out of Florida. You can bet your last insurance dollar that will be your only choice. What you lose now you will save up the road.

Robert Melaccio Sr., Spring Hill

Ad hard to swallow

I read the full-page advertisement in the Sunday paper from the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America with a grain of salt. They try to tell us that we have had the "worst weather in more than a century and predictions of even more frequent and severe storms in the future." They go on to say "some actions being considered could destroy the ability of consumers to purchase affordable insurance..."

This is exactly what the insurance companies have been doing the last few years with their rate hikes. Along with denying reasonable claims, dropping coverage and cherry-picking customers. I will listen to the PCI when they address these questions:

- Why did they show windfall profits for the last two years yet still cry poor?

- What have they done with all the money collected in the majority of the years without severe storms?

- Why did they contribute 10 times more to Republicans being elected opposed to the Democrats in Florida?

When they can truthfully answer these questions then I will listen to them.

Scott A. McKown, Palm Harbor

For $11M, what will insurance lobby get? Jan. 19, story

Money to give away

Does it bother anyone else out there that the insurance industry had $11-million to throw into the last election alone, but people are seeing policies canceled left and right and premiums doubling and tripling? It bothers me.

Robyn Dalton, Largo

For Floridians only

I am cautiously optimistic about the Legislature's first attempts to solve the state's problems with homeowners insurance. There is much more that needs to be done for the full-time residents of this state.

As I scan the articles and editorials I do not find where anyone is proposing a fix for a glaring and costly problem: insuring the property of part-time visitors who own a primary home in another state.

The citizens of Florida should not have to underwrite, subsidize or any in way be held responsible for the insurance of properties owned by out-of-state individuals or businesses. If we have to subsidize Citizens Property Insurance, it should only be for primary residences and not for the part-time visitors who already enjoy the rights and privileges of a primary residence in another state.

Carol Becker, Belleair Bluffs

Assessment excesses

On my car insurance bill there is a new mandatory tax: the Florida Hurricane CAT Fund. As a renter, every year when I renew my lease, my rent gets raised significantly. Why should I pay into a fund that benefits only those who own?

Oh yes, this is a great plan. Pitting homeowners against renters.

Laurence Jarguel, Lutz

Self-insuring

When Travelers notified me that they would not be insuring my home again - after more than 20 years of no claims - I checked out other insurers and found some huge rates for even $1,000 deductible policies. Since my home turned 50, Citizens required an expensive inspection to qualify for one of their overpriced policies.

Since I have no mortgage, self-insuring seemed the answer. Every month I bank what I would otherwise spend on premiums, lock my fence at night, put up "Beware of the Attack Dog" signs, and keep my fingers crossed. Since my house has not blown away in more than 50 years, it is theft that worries me most. If that happens, I will at least have replacement money for the few things I have of value, and there will be no deductible!

This is risky, but had I done it 20 years ago, I would have a huge bank account earning interest and no worries.

Adele Ida Walter, Tampa

A new direction

I believe our legislators in Washington and Tallahassee heard the message loud and clear in this last election. We want our lawmakers to represent us in their decisionmaking process. Not the oil industry, the insurance industry, the pharmaceuticals and other large corporations.

This past week some steps were taken in the right direction. Let us hope those in the White House received the same massage.

Jack Levine, Palm Harbor

Condos can help us conserve Jan. 16, letter

Condo head count

The letter writer makes a good per capita point on the efficiency of condos over detached homes. However, a truer rating of condo efficiency might be people per square mile. Detached homes may have an average of four people per unit and perhaps four units in the same space that a condo can jam in 60 to 100 units containing two to three people each, so space for space condos have 120 to 300 consumers of water, electricity and other services against detached homes with a total of 16 consumers.

The problem is not per capita consumption but crowding beyond the ability to provide services.

Parick Setford, Hudson

Well, our newly elected politicians and governor are really riverboat gamblers in populist drag. From experience, we know that Citizens Property Insurance and several private insurance companies spawned by Citizens underpriced hurricane risks prior to 2004. We know this because of the insolvencies and/or bankruptcies of some of the private companies and the fact that the state had to resort to a surcharge of all policyholders of property insurance following the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes seasons.

Following Hurricane Andrew, the Legislature should never have created the JUA or Citizens, and now it is planning to go into the reinsurance business as a way to continue the populist idea of underpricing risk in Florida. But as most adults know, there are no free lunches; someone has to pay. Sometimes gamblers are lucky; sometimes they are not. The state government was lucky from 1994 through 2003. However, after just one bad hurricane year Citizens blew through its accumulated reserves, and after two years Citizen-spawned private companies blew through their capital, accumulated reserves as well as their reinsurance programs.

So now that crack team in Tallahassee is going to play poker with your and my money. In short, the Legislature is collectivizing risks and setting the stage to socialize costs. I don't cotton to being coerced into taking risks that are not of my own making or paying a surcharge on my privately obtained property policy.

The state cannot make insurance more affordable or available except through solutions that are draconian, that misallocate resources and will, in the long term, fail. We don't need more government intrusion and intervention; we need much less.

Harry E. Teasley Jr., Tampa

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 23:20:52]