Is it the End of Days for Appointed Florida Commissioners?
While Florida's current insurance commissioner, Kevin McCarty, was appointed by (and answers to) the elected Cabinet, several lawmakers are proposing something to the contrary.
The Insurance Journal reported today that bipartisan efforts by some Florida lawmakers are supporting a constitutional change to return the job to an elected Cabinet post.
Proponents of the measure say that ballooning property insurance premiums following major hurricanes now have the public feeling that the insurance process is skewed against them.
According to the Insurance Journal, the position of insurance commissioner became an appointed post in 1998 when Florida voters dialed down the Cabinet from six members to three, plus the governor. At that time, lawmakers decided that appointing insurance commissioners would eliminate some of the politics from the position and furthermore decided that elected candidates would be barred from taking campaign contributions from the insurance industry.
But as Florida homeowners saw premium hike after premium hike, they began to feel slighted and powerless, argue the measure's proponents.
Now, I hate to point out the obvious, but Florida sees a lot of hurricanes. And while I understand that the public needs to feel some sort of responsibility [read: control] over the insurance regulations in their state, if I were a Florida home or business owner, I'd expect to be paying a fair amount to insure my property. And, I'd probably expect that with eight hurricanes in two years, insurers would need to increase their rates to cover their risk or they'd go out of business. And then Florida home insurance would be akin to New Jersey auto insurance, it'd be a mess and Florida residents would be even more upset.
But my theoretical diatribe begs the question: should the job of Florida insurance commissioner be an elected post? Because to be honest with you, I'm a copywriter who writes about insurance (hey, don't believe what you hear--it's glamorous.) and would like to hear how other industry experts feel.
So check out the Insurance Journal's article and let me know what you think!
Comments
Only 10 or 11 states elect insurance comissioners rather than appoint them. The highly regulated North Carolina is one of them, but also North Dakota which is fairly mild.
Electing insurance comissioners doesn't at first seem like that great of an idea -- I mean, people could vote for some schmuck who doesn't know anything about insurance, after all. But then you have to think that the appointment process has not prevented some very unqualified people from being insurance commissioners in the past either, so really I don't see much of a difference. You'll either get a good one or a bad one. Even if a commissioner is elected, he or she will still likely face an equivilent amount of political pressure on various issues.
The only obvious problem I could see is if a commissioner runs on a platform of forcing insurance companies to lower their rates in that state (as opposed to a platform of setting it up so the state gets fair rates.), which has been done in the past actually.
Posted by: Michael | February 19, 2006 04:57 PM
Good comments, Michael.
I agree with you in that I'm not entirely sure what good would come of electing an insurance commissioner, as it seems like it would bring [more] unwelcome politics to the position.
My gut tells me that Floridians are simply frustrated with insurance costs, and who can blame them?
But it’s called “Floridaâ€Â, not “Utopia†and frankly I don’t see how an elected insurance commissioner is going to change the fact that the state has seen eight hurricanes in two years (not to mention the biggies like Andrew before them) and that insurers have to pay for losses and assess risk for the future.
With ’06 predicted to be a rough year hurricane-wise, I think Floridians on the coast will ultimately have to decide whether they want to move out of the area or fork over the cash for insurance. Not an easy decision to make I suppose. But that, as they say, is life.
Thanks again for posting, Michael. Hope to see you back.
Posted by: Megan Mahan | February 20, 2006 10:42 PM
Awesome blog. Peace out until next time TabathaOster
Posted by: TabathaOster | May 18, 2006 05:36 PM