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Insurance show must not go on

Ever feel like you're stuck watching the same melodramatic and pointless skit in Tallahassee over property insurance?

By Robert Trigaux , Times Business Editor
Published October 21, 2007

Ever feel like you're stuck watching the same melodramatic and pointless skit in Tallahassee over property insurance?

Gov. Crist: You must lower insurance rates!

Insurance industry: We won't lower rates!

Gov. Crist:You must lower insurance rates!

Insurance industry: We won't lower rates! You can't make us!

Gov. Crist:Oh yeah?

Insurance industry: Yeah!

Every time, the scene ends with each side sticking out his tongue at the other before they both go on their merry ways - Gov. Crist to yet another Mission Accomplished press conference, and insurance lobbyists back to celebrate their skills at stalling.

Insurance company CEOs apparently don't like to demonstrate public leadership during dire times. Instead they hire "spokesmen" and "insurance councils" to handle the mess of dealing with angry customers.

If you want to hear a pin drop, ask someone to name even one get-'er-done insurance company leader making a difference here.

Don't be fooled for a minute by our state government's symbolic muscle-flexing. It means diddly squat. Take Allstate, the once-big property insurer in Florida well on its way to becoming a petite player here. Last week, Florida regulators subpoenaed Allstate, probing possible "industry collusion" to thwart state efforts to cut insurance rates.

Gov. Crist called the insurance industry "tenacious" and "greedy." Well, most companies like being called "tenacious." And, as for "greedy" - come on. These are insurance companies.

Crist said the investigation would shed light on the failure of Allstate and others to provide meaningful rate relief to Florida customers despite legislation earlier this year to lower rates.

So is Allstate trembling in fear at the latest name calling and legal saber rattling? If Allstate ever issued a real response to the Charlie Crist show, it would be the world's shortest press release: BU-WHA-HA-HA!

Here's why.

Allstate is a very big company and Florida, frankly, is neither large enough nor tough enough to push it around. Besides, Allstate's too busy sounding Retreat! not only by dumping tens of thousands of Florida homeowners - and seeking monumental rate increases in this state - but by duplicating those actions across much of the coastal United States from Maine to Texas.

Allstate is so blase about it that its press releases now identify 18 U.S. states and the nation's capital as "hurricane exposure states." Yes, Florida is a member.

Gov. Crist might consider a regional coalition of such states to "convince" insurers to find better ideas than just dumping customers and raising rates.

One ally resides in Mississippi. Sen. Trent Lott, a Republican like Crist, is hell-bent on making insurers accountable after their shabby performance in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

"They don't think we're going to get them, but someday they're going to wake up and we're going to nail them," Lott told the Wall Street Journal recently. "The last day I'm in Congress and the last day I'm alive, I will continue to pressure them."

Now that's a man on a mission. Charlie, take notice. United we stand. Divided, we stay patsies to the indifference of big insurers.

Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8405.

[Last modified October 19, 2007, 22:23:30]