Insurance Crisis Hits Businesses Hard

The Florida State Legislature is going back to Tallahassee in September to balance the budget.

There’s a small possibility it could take up extending the no-fault law, if there is a concrete proposal on the table.

But not on the agenda at all - unfortunately, according to a Miami Herald editorial: insurance reform.

As Beatrice Garcia reported last week, we’ve been in a sense going backward on insurance relief instead of gaining traction.

So far, the vast majority of homeowner’s insurance-rate requests have been for increases rather than decreases.

And as Garcia reported Sunday, the situation for business owners has not improved much either. In fact, some could face triple-digit hikes.

All this comes at a time when the Florida economy is feeling the pain.

In the news last week: Miami-Dade County condo sales fell 50 percent over a year ago, and in Broward County sales were off 35 percent.

Some Florida real estate experts now say it will be 2009 before the housing market starts to recover. Add to that subpar earnings or forecasts from AutoNation, Ocean Bank and Office Depot - all citing a worsening economy.

The insurance crisis threatens to exasperate an exodus that is already starting in some parts of the state, as South Florida mortgage payments rise beyond what residents can bear.

In Pinellas County on the Gulf, officials have announced they will likely close a handful of schools and maybe more because of dwindling enrollment.

In South Florida, too, we’ve seen dwindling school enrollments - the Palm Beach County school district has run TV spots that try to persuade families to stay.

Moving companies report more people are moving out of the state than moving in. Insurance, Florida home mortgage expenses and other rising costs of living are helping to drive them away.

One bit of potential good news:

Insurance reform is on the Washington agenda, in the form of a bill that expands the National Flood Insurance Program to cover wind damage passed a U.S. House committee. But it has a ways to go and faces stiff Republican resistance.

Insurance reform will take time - there is no magic pill that will make it all better. To be sure, we live on a peninsula that is highly developed, particularly on the coasts.

But considering what a steep toll Florida mortgage costs are already taking, we have to keep working at the problem.

SOURCE: Miami Herald