Montana Insurance

Struggling to fulfil a campaign promise last fall, virtually all legislators Florida, the legislature adopted a series of measures would reduce Monday that the rate Home Insurance - modest, in large part - by the ‘State of billions of dollars to buy additional risk.

Insurance costs have risen after eight hurricanes, click on the state in the years 2004 and 2005 and forecasts assume that the wild storms could take to maintain, at least for the next decade. Facilitating the crisis Dir Charlie Crist Top goal, and he convened a meeting of the legislative procedure for a few days after taking office on January 1.

But while Mr. Crist, a Republican, and dominated by legislative Republicans said last week they were required to achieve above-board rate cuts, the reality has proved more complex.

South Floridians among insurers of public law out of the last, because private companies refuse to insure their homes will see that the smallest economies - as little as 8 percent. Your insurance costs have more than tripled since 2004, forcing many people to consider, Florida.

Private owners would save more insurance - up 21.8 percent on average - legislative analysts.

“We do not pretend to be that the bill is perfect,” said State Senator Bill Posey, a Republican from Rockledge, helped negotiate changes week during a special session in Tallahassee, “and we do not ‘claim that the work “.

The legislation would allow private insurers to buy relief reports from the State budget’s Hurricane Catastrophe Fund at market rates and thereby reduce premiums for him. But a violent storm - or worse, a string of them - could not only wegzaubern funds, but also force people to pay annual assessments on the slopes house, car and other policies of insurance for them.

“The catastrophe fund resources Wind-up is dehydrated more often than ever before,” said Robert P. Hartwig, president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group in New York. “What really happening here is that people are forced to pay massive assessments in the future. ”

Insurance companies nationally have record profits in 2006, did not foresee devastating cyclones, and Mr. Crist has strongly criticized the industry, an unusual step for a Republican. In particular, he questioned why Floridians saw their prices rise despite the calm storm season. But Mr. Hartwig, “said Crist should not be expected to own a house in Florida to benefit from industry profits garnered less risky states.

“With the law, the price of insurance in each country on the basis of experience gained in this state and this country,” said Hartwig. “Governor Crist, with all due respect, was told that if an insurer realized profits on policy owners in Montana or auto-policy in Idaho, and anyway that the benefits should be accessible homeowners Florida, to their tax rate down. ”

The legislation on 116 votes against 2 in the House of Representatives and 40 to 0 in the Senate, is also an average of 21 percent, took this month to customers of Citizens things, the body governed by public law , And another average 56 percent growth was effective in March.

Citizens of things under the huge deficits in the years 2004 and 2005, the state’s largest insurers of the house, for 1.3 million homes. The new law repeals the requirement that require higher prices and allows private companies to sell more coverage of the storm, two changes rankled private insurers.