By: Rene Velez May 19th, 2010
In all that I do I try very hard to be fair. But when faced with circumstances that are unfair, I do not take kindly to the circumstances. In particular when there are people, corporations and a governemnt watch dog that is their job and responsibility to make sure things are done correctly and fairly for the benefit of society.......... When it all fails, all together and at once what do we have? We have a complete systemic failure that typically smells like general incompetence. When our goverment shares equally in this failure.........we need to speak up and be heard.
Here is my rant to Alex Sink, CFO of the state of Florida regarding the cancellation of my homeowners insurance policy, in a surprising and unexpected and almost unannounced fashion.
Dear Ms. Sink,
By sheer accident I came across the fact that my home owners insurance company was being liquidated by the Florida Department of Financial Services. Just one day ago I received a letter from Magnolia advising to seek alternative insurance because our policy would be terminated come May 30th.
Although I am sure the DFS has cause for liquidating the company, I am not at all pleased with how this is being done. Very little time to shop, 8 days til the policy lapses, poor notice from the company and none from the state. What in the world is your department thinking? There people and lives behind the policy being cancelled.
This leaves a very bitter taste which I am sure will be reflected in how I vote. As it is, the general public is angry at how poorly government serves it’s people. This is not the way to do business. I am an open minded and educated professional which understands and is accomodating to change. However, collectively a poor economy, rising costs of living, continued increases in the cost of home owners insurance, health care costs and impending increass in taxes leave people who are responsible and prudent in the management of their financial affairs wondering what DFS and other governmental agencies are doing for us. The department needs to pursue long term planning goals for homeowner insurance. You will no doubt need federal backing and perhaps legislation.
- No more of these sparsley capitalized insurance companies that are time bombs.
- No more Florida subsidiaries of national companies who’s only reason for creating a Florida company is to limit their losses in the event of hurricanes. The name of the game in insuring risk is diversification, across state boundries.
- Diversify loss risk by zip code and type of dwelliing to avoid concentrations in each insurer.
- Limit the amount of Re-Insurance.
- Curb the amount of premium revenues that can be used for marketing and market share growth and other non essential general and adminsitrative costs. Force investment superfunds to cover potential future losses. In other words “regulate”.
- Require Cross diversifying high yielding insurance products with high risk homeowner policies to spread risk among revenues.
Simply said there is a whole lot that can be done to bring insurers into the market and have stronger and profitable companies that won’t come crawling back to the state when we have several hurricanes in a season. Of course this requires tough legislation, hard bargaining and a willingness to leverage the states role in becoming an insurer of last resort. The insurance companies need to adapt and change their busness model if they want business in Florida. We simply can not allow them to come into our state and rake in the profits from lucrative policy underwriting and then leave the high risk business thinly capitalized and in the lap of limited state economic and management resources.
A simple timely notice and more time could of made a big difference in public perception. Instead we get an unequitable slap in the face.
Please do a better job. The people of this great state deserve fairness. We are not getting this because of poor planning and the shortsighted vision of corporate America and government officials who are asleep at the wheel.
By sheer accident I came across the fact that my home owners insurance company was being liquidated by the Florida Department of Financial Services. Just one day ago I received a letter from Magnolia advising to seek alternative insurance because our policy would be terminated come May 30th.
Although I am sure the DFS has cause for liquidating the company, I am not at all pleased with how this is being done. Very little time to shop, 8 days til the policy lapses, poor notice from the company and none from the state. What in the world is your department thinking? There people and lives behind the policy being cancelled.
This leaves a very bitter taste which I am sure will be reflected in how I vote. As it is, the general public is angry at how poorly government serves it’s people. This is not the way to do business. I am an open minded and educated professional which understands and is accomodating to change. However, collectively a poor economy, rising costs of living, continued increases in the cost of home owners insurance, health care costs and impending increass in taxes leave people who are responsible and prudent in the management of their financial affairs wondering what DFS and other governmental agencies are doing for us. The department needs to pursue long term planning goals for homeowner insurance. You will no doubt need federal backing and perhaps legislation.
- No more of these sparsley capitalized insurance companies that are time bombs.
- No more Florida subsidiaries of national companies who’s only reason for creating a Florida company is to limit their losses in the event of hurricanes. The name of the game in insuring risk is diversification, across state boundries.
- Diversify loss risk by zip code and type of dwelliing to avoid concentrations in each insurer.
- Limit the amount of Re-Insurance.
- Curb the amount of premium revenues that can be used for marketing and market share growth and other non essential general and adminsitrative costs. Force investment superfunds to cover potential future losses. In other words “regulate”.
- Require Cross diversifying high yielding insurance products with high risk homeowner policies to spread risk among revenues.
Simply said there is a whole lot that can be done to bring insurers into the market and have stronger and profitable companies that won’t come crawling back to the state when we have several hurricanes in a season. Of course this requires tough legislation, hard bargaining and a willingness to leverage the states role in becoming an insurer of last resort. The insurance companies need to adapt and change their busness model if they want business in Florida. We simply can not allow them to come into our state and rake in the profits from lucrative policy underwriting and then leave the high risk business thinly capitalized and in the lap of limited state economic and management resources.
A simple timely notice and more time could of made a big difference in public perception. Instead we get an unequitable slap in the face.
Please do a better job. The people of this great state deserve fairness. We are not getting this because of poor planning and the shortsighted vision of corporate America and government officials who are asleep at the wheel.
With any Luck, I may have gotten my message accross. Keep in mind, I am not an insurance expert. Send, write, speak, be heard! It's really good therapy :)
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