In the wake of two major hurricanes, Florida’s former governor encouraged the state to become more aggressive with insurance companies as a cost-cutting measure.
“Please hire more companies,” current Sen. Rick Scott urged in a Friday interview with Orlando’s WKMG.
“If you want to lower prices, you have to do two things,” Scott said. “We need more companies to hire and work with insurance companies to provide products that consumers can buy.”
Losses from Hurricane Milton are not expected to be as large as Hurricane Ian in 2022, but industry experts told POLITICO that losses are expected to be “in the double digits of $1 billion.” Other estimates put the final number as high as $36 billion, with the impact on population centers far from distribution centers contributing to the push.
Scott has criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis for six years since the Naples Republican left the governor’s mansion and relocated to Naples, even though he has kept the governor’s name out of his mouth while denouncing “soaring” interest rates. He did not hesitate to criticize the insurance market below. Senate. Scott last year said high interest rates were “bankrupting” the state, described the state’s insurance market as a “disaster” and called Farmers Insurance’s exit a “wake-up call” for the state.
The state is facing aggressive rebuttals from political appointees.
“Florida’s property and casualty insurance market continues to strengthen, contrary to the popular narrative about our industry in recent months,” Michael Jaworski, director of the state Department of Insurance Regulation, said earlier this month. OIR “continues to work with all of the state’s airlines to build on the significant progress made to date and end this year on track for sustained growth.”
Before the Milton policy went into effect, 15 companies applied for rate cuts, but the overall rate of increase was 1.6% year-on-year, lagging behind the 7% increase in the previous 12 months.
DeSantis said a few days ago that it was “too early” to speculate on the insurance impact ahead of Milton. However, ahead of Hurricane Helen, DeSantis said that “57 companies have not applied for premium increases or decreases,” and that “some people in Florida are actually increasing their premiums.” He said his insurance was in “good standing.”
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