Contrary to the basic American Dream, I did not buy another house after the sale of my family home. I wanted simply to “rest” from the responsibilities of home ownership.
I could not have picked a better time in the state of Florida-slammed by two seasons of unusually high hurricane activity and now, slammed by skyrocketing insurance rates-to live the life of a carefree renter.
For the last two years, homes with blue tarps predominated the local scene. “For Sale” signs now litter neighborhoods, especially those homes located on the waterfront.
My prediction? The huge jump in home insurance costs that have forced Floridians to put homes on the market will force these same homeowners to drop their already inflated asking price, just to get out from under the insurance ax that is poised and ready to drop.
A glut of Florida homes will remain unsold or uninsured.
At no surprise, the insurance lobbies have played their own ugly hand at the insurance dynamics that add to the stress of home owners. Insurers are quick to blame hurricanes on rising costs, but this blogger, always a cynic, offers this March 2, 2003 Palm Beach Post article for the reader’s perusal.
“The industry has cultivated its influence in the Florida Capitol by contributing millions of dollars to campaigns and hiring hundreds of lobbyists. It has long been recognized as one of the most potent lobbying groups in Tallahassee.”
Floridians are losing their homes under the House of Jeb Bush and the Republican leadership.
Plain and simple.
“We figured we were making the last move of our lives,” said Mr. Polsky, 49, whose three-bedroom home was damaged by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. “Now we’re ready to move out of state, and we shouldn’t have to.”
Florida is losing its luster for many residents like him, who are scouring for homeowners’ insurance after two ferocious hurricane seasons and struggling to pay for what they find
Ask yourself. Are you better off today than four years ago?
Do Floridians want more of the same?
Is Paradise Lost?
And just who IS running the big show? Read on and remind yourself-you have the power to take your state back.
Vote September 5th and November 7th.
Insurers cough up cash for campaigns
GOP, Gallagher top recipients
The powerful insurance lobby has contributed more than $10 million to Florida races this election cycle, campaign finance records show.
That insurance companies account for about 5 percent of hard campaign money is not something candidates brag about as they go about the necessary work of raising money to run statewide campaigns.
“Here in Florida, as badly as we’ve been shafted by the insurance industry, I’m extremely skeptical of anyone taking that money,” said Ken Berry, a Merritt Island voter whose home premium jumped sixfold to $6,000, so high he can’t afford to buy it. Many of his neighbors, faced with the same financial crunch, are leaving.
“The ‘For Sale’ signs are going up all over my neighborhood,” Berry said, a fact he blames on politicians who “owe their allegiance, instead of to the people they’re representing, they owe it to big business.”
While the Republican Party of Florida collected $3.5 million from insurance companies and their executives, no candidate pulled in industry checks like CFO Tom Gallagher.
The former state insurance regulator’s run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination got a big initial kick from insurance interests. That sector’s contributions so far to Gallagher and a political committee set up to support him: $780,000.
Gallagher, whose honorary finance chairman, Tom Petway, runs an insurance company, says his public role is as a consumer advocate.
“The proof is in his record — no one has worked harder on behalf of Florida’s consumers,” said campaign spokesman Albert Martinez.
“Tom is the only candidate for governor who supported a billion dollars in insurance rate relief and storm-proofing aid, and Tom is the only candidate for governor who is opposed to the big government insurance plan being pushed by Democrats and the insurance industry.”
Insurance companies, in general, don’t back Democrats. The party collected $648,000 from the industry since 2004.
Hoping to succeed Gallagher as CFO is Senate President Tom Lee, a developer who now inherits much of the insurance industry’s support.
At a hotel off a South Florida interstate last year, insurance executives lined up for private chats with Lee in exchange for their campaign contributions, said Rhett O’Doski, who helped arrange the fundraiser with clients of lobbyist Mike Colodny and Fred Karlinsky.
Lee said he tested his candidacy with Colodny’s firm, seeing what support he’d get from the state’s largest insurance lobbyists.
But he distinguishes between pragmatic politics, and how he believes the state’s current insurance crisis must be handled.
“The politics are pretty simple, and they’re frankly pretty shallow and pretty old-school,” Lee said of the necessity to raise a lot of money to run for statewide office. “The substantive issues are far more complex to discuss. . . . This is a problem that is going to require the best and brightest leaders of our state.”
Insurance contributions make up just 2 percent of the money collected by Lee’s primary opponent, a fact Randy Johnson boasts about. Insurance industry money accounts for 9 percent of Lee’s total fundraising.
“Voters are not stupid. They clearly understand that a big part of how we got into this mess was that insurance companies hold way too much sway with people like Tom Lee,” Johnson said.
The biggest checks come from companies with a vested interest in legislative matters.
United Auto, the Chicago-based car insurance company owned by Dick Parrillo, contributed more than $760,000 this election cycle, most of it to the Republican party. Parrillo at the same time lobbied for the Legislature to make it tougher to collect personal injury claims sold by his company.
Managed care companies Well Care, Blue Cross and Vista Health ranked next, contributing a combined $1.5 million to lawmakers deciding how to privatize the state’s public health care system. (Paige St. John for Florida Today, 8/21/2006)
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