Broad (SB 2498), Bill Glitch, is awaiting final Senate approval in the state capital of Florida. This would make Crist’s campaign promise to prohibit private insurance companies from setting up subsidiaries only in Florida. Crist derided the insurers as a tool to steer their insurers out of the state, while further charging Floridians with exorbitant rates. The bill must go through two sessions with the Senate for a final vote.
A Glitch Bill is supposed to mean that small technical problems are “fixed” in the insurance industry. It is meant to lower premium rates and control how much insurance companies can charge premiums. By fixing these technical problems that insurance companies would have, they would deliver savings to the patient. Insurance companies are required to pay claims in 90 days for residential homeowners. However, commercial businesses (such as multi-family, condos, townhouses, small businesses) would be more complicated. and the hard time involved in this short period of time. Hence they could not be in Glitch Bibl.
Because of this, a few days ago I received a letter from my insurance company, the United Automobile Association (USAA) about property insurance. First, let me say that USAA is one of the best insurance companies around and a wonderful company. Offered only to their active and prior service members. We’ve been with USAA for almost 30 years and can’t compete with them.
Fortunately for me, I sold the house in my second year, so I immediately moved to one. Although the literature states, this only affects 10% of their circumstances, forcing them to suffer a great deal of nonsense. It could also force some owners to sell those houses faster and by adding more houses to our continuously growing real estate inventory.
According to USAA, they feel they have to do this to protect their national membership by limiting coverage in Florida due to the fact that limited rates have been lifted. Essentially, this means that if Florida is unable to deal with natural disasters and natural disasters, it will be devastated. company’s money. Over the past 20 years, my insurance premiums have barely increased until 2006, when I had a 40% increase. Also, my housing plan just went up which means a higher deduction if hurricane damages my property. These property prices are returned from 2005 prices which we know are now down at least 10% since that high. I get the sense that they knew this bill was coming and they had to make their progress before the news hit. I didn’t see a lot of growth in 2005 that coincidentally happened from 2004.
So the Little Glitch is bad news for multi-ownership, but apparently good news if you only have one home. It is said that they limit how much they can raise premiums annually.
Over the last year or so since we’ve been hit by several hurricanes, many of our insurance premiums have seen our insurance companies jump as much as 40%. This includes those who are not at sea or have never experienced wind damage.
So what’s all this about Florida? Well, there are many insurance companies that have left the state. It is difficult for new home owners to provide their homes which will put more pressure on home prices in the future.
We live in the Orlando area, and so this is not a relapse. In fact, when those three hurricanes approached Orlando, it was the first time since 1960 when Hurricane Donna visited us. Is it fair that someone like me should have been relieved of their premiums when my area was affected by no wind damage? No, but by the same token it worries me about property prices down the road if there aren’t many insurance companies that will provide insurance in Florida. It’s a catch 22. Trying to pass this bill for homeowners sounds good but what could be the result? Is it worth the risk to drive all insurance out of state? I have seen nothing in this document that addresses them by changing the policy of the deduction clause or increasing the stay. It’s all relative.
And this is not limited to residential property insurance. Commercial insurance, especially small businesses across the coast struggle to pay their insurance premiums. Most of them rent space, so they look at the cost to their tenants. This would be critical for tourism if small businesses were to leave the state.
I read that these rate reductions would be less than 24 percent of homeowners. Personally, I don’t know if it’s worth the small reductions. All will see that it does not conclude. Is it really worth messing up our state economy if we have few choices as to who will pay for us anyway?
