Wind Insurance Special Session
A New Era to Curb Insurance or Just Tough Talk?

“The climate has changed and the dialogue has changed.”

By Cynthia Archbold

Normally a fairly dry topic, windstorm insurance has taken Floridians by storm.

Everyone is watching state lawmakers as they tackle the property insurance crisis in special session this week, as if it were the playoffs for the Super Bowl, or perhaps more like a horror movie.

The crisis is so dire that Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick organized an impromptu public hearing on Friday to give lobbyist Fausto Gomez an earful straight from citizens who are suffering before going to Tallahassee to represent the City Beautiful during the seven-day session.

It’s such a hot topic, two local TV news crews showed up. “I couldn’t believe it. Normally we don’t get much TV coverage in the Gables,” the mayor said.

“It’s a major issue for every citizen in the state of Florida,” says Slesnick. “Everyone wants to protect themselves from catastrophic loss, and to be able to afford it.” Yet he says the costs are out of reach for many residents whose insurance is going up two and three times this year alone.

Paying three times as much is too much for Mary Naccarato, who spoke at the hearing. She’s an 82-year-old Coral Gables resident living on Social Security and two small pensions. She says her State Farm insurance policy is going up from $3,900 to $9,600. 

She must come up with $5,700 by March or lose her policy and her mortgage. She can’t understand why she’s facing a rate increase of almost 150 percent since her house has never been hit by a hurricane and she’s never filed a claim.

On Monday Naccarato e-mailed Gov. Charlie Crist and key lawmakers a letter imploring them to reform the insurance industry to make premiums affordable again.

“All eyes and ears of Florida homeowners (and probably the nation) will be on Tallahassee for the immediate, foreseeable future,” she wrote.

No one is exempt from the insurance crisis costs. Minority Leader Rep. Dan Gelber (D-Miami Beach) says his own premium has gone up from $9,000 to $16,000.

He says this week’s special session is a long time coming. Gelber has spent six years fighting for insurance reforms in vain, he says, due to Republican opposition to the idea of governmental intervention to curb escalating insurance rates.

Speaking on his cell phone from the airport Tuesday morning, just before the session began, Gelber said it seems that “the Republicans have come around 180 degrees.”

“Last year we introduced an approach to this crisis that is very similar to the approach being bandied about the capital now, and we couldn’t even get a hearing.”  

Gelber says ironically, “Now, the legislature is considering ideas that are not only like ours but go far beyond them.”

Back in August, Gelber said, “the Republicans are in lock step with the insurance industry,” during a public forum at Coral Gables High School when the Republicans launched their 101 Ideas campaign to solve the insurance crisis. “They won’t do a single thing that the insurance companies don’t want.”

And some Republicans agreed with him. Rep. Juan Zapata (R-Miami) said at that forum that the failure to solve the insurance crisis was the fault of his own party.

“You know I think for far too long we knew we created a system that only benefited the insurance companies,” Zapata said then.

But now, Gelber says, “The climate has changed and the dialogue has changed. It’s more promising than it’s ever been.” The reason for the apparent turnaround? Gelber says a lot of it is due to Gov. Crist, who’s been directing tough talk toward the insurance industry.

“Big insurance has a new day dawning — and it starts [Jan.] 16,” Crist is quoted as saying last week.

“Everything is better with Crist,” Gelber says. “Not only is he the governor, he’s the leader of the Republicans. In his statements he has given little support or refuge to the insurance industry apologists.”

Another reason Gelber is hopeful is because of new leadership on the House Insurance Committee. For the past several years the Insurance Committee chairman was Don Brown, an insurance agent representing the Florida Panhandle.

Gelber says Brown was responsible for blocking the Democrat’s insurance proposals from being heard, and also for exempting Panhandle properties from the state building code and hurricane standards.

But now the Insurance Committee chairman is Rep. David Rivera (R-Miami), who is authoring and presenting proposals chock-full of the ideas the Democrats suggested last year, one of which is to establish a uniform building code and eliminate regional exemptions.

“It’s time to restore balance to Florida’s insurance market. The House insurance reforms are all about making insurance companies treat Floridians fairly,” Rivera said in a statement Jan. 10.

In announcing the special session, House Speaker Marco Rubio (R-West Miami) called it “our chance to help Floridians who are struggling with rising insurance costs to take comprehensive steps to reform our market.”

The strong, pro-consumer language makes Gelber cautiously optimistic that homeowners will benefit from special session.

“The good news is that everyone is looking at similar proposals or at least similar approaches.”

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