THE POLICYHOLDER'S ADVOCATE®
In a local television news report in New Orleans and one yesterday in Tampa, I explained the need for policyholders in coastal areas to purchase flood insurance. The problem is that flood insurance is getting harder to find and more expensive to purchase.…
Continue Reading Flood Insurance is Harder to Find and Politics is One Reason
Stupidity is what will kill this country. Financed real estate transactions cannot occur in some parts of the country without flood insurance being purchased on the structure. Such insurance is difficult to find in the private market. As a result, the National Flood Program exists. But, it can only exist if Congress allows it, and Congress has left for its Easter vacation without passing legislation allowing the National Flood Program to operate.…
Continue Reading No New National Flood Insurance Policies Can Be Written Until April 12
Imagine a government could make arbitrary decisions about your rights without question. Do you think that would happen in China or the United States? Well, if it involves your national flood insurance policy, it has been happening in the United States for a long time. One federal judge has seen through the unfairness and called a halt to this practice in the recent case of Thomas L. Moffett v. Computer Sciences Corp., et al,. Civil No. 05-1547 (Md. D. Ct., July 6, 2009).…
I was thinking about the question of property insurance trade associations and lobbying while reading today’s St. Petersburg Times article, At what Cost Care? The article was a question and answer discussion with Wendell Potter, who was a public relations executive for two major health insurers. Potter has given an inside view into the political and social power of the health insurance industry in a manner most Americans probably deplore. I wonder if property insurers are different? I doubt it.…
Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, announced that his Subcommittee will hold a hearing to protect insurance consumers from risks in the insurance system and to prevent insurance companies from posing a systemic risk and threatening the American financial system. This systemic risk may be the federal government’s only legitimate concern when it comes to regulating insurance.
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Continue Reading Federal Hearings On Insurance Oversight Set for June 16
What happened to the time when a significant insurance coverage decision arrived and everybody in my line of work analyzed that topic for several years? Now, the insurance industry is writing so many new and differently worded forms, it is hard to rely upon case decisions as being of widespread significance. If a case decision is made which insurance companies want to avoid, they re-write the policy or the insurance industry lobbies legislators to change the statutory law "gaming" the insurance business to outcomes predetermined in the insurer’s favor. Accordingly, I spend more time researching trends of politics. I also review insurance trade journals to contemplate how my policyholder clients may be impacted.…
The Texas legislature has its hands full this week with an omnibus biill regarding TWIA. Florida Governor Charlie Crist has to decide whether to veto various measures regarding insurance legislation. Additionally, three federal bills were just filed which may impact the landscape of how insurance is made available and sold.…
Continue Reading A Big Week for Texas and Florida Politics of Insurance
I was reading a blog by Steve Piontech, Editor-in-Chief of the National Underwriter Life & Health. His remarks seemed to add another valid reason why federal charter and the choice of a sole federal regulator needs to be avoided:…
Imagine – all kinds of legislation, hand in hand with lobbying and political positioning, just in time for the start of hurricane season on June 1. A couple of recent news stories point out the possible direction that several key measures may be heading.…
