Major Insurance Problems on the Gulf Coast!

Thursday, April 28, 2011
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

LOUISIANA AND FLORIDA--
NIGHT AND DAY ON PROPERTY INSURANCE!

All this week, Florida’s largest newspaper, the Miami Herald, has been writing both feature articles and editorials about the problems facing Florida property owners in finding affordable insurance. Day after day, headlines conveyed the intensity of the struggle -- “Storm Warning: Prop up Insurance,” was a typical lead, along with, “Is Citizens Insurance ready for the big one?” and “Lawmakers still scrambling on wind insurance.” Florida, like all gulf coast states, has problems of both insurance affordability and availability. But here’s the difference between the Sunshine state and the Bayou state. Florida is giving the problem serious attention. It’s a front and center concern for the governor, the legislature, insurance regulators, and the news media. In Louisiana where I live, there is hardly a whisper.

When Florida Governor Rick Scott took office a few months ago, his first words of commitment were: “The lack of available and affordable property insurance is the biggest threat to our economy.“ Just this week, Scott began exploring how to sharply curtail or even shut down the state’s Citizens Property Insurance Company. The Miami Herald editorialized just last week that the Florida legislature should allow no more property insurance rates in the state. The Florida governor and the legislature are taking the insurance problem head-on.

Florida has significantly more hurricane exposure than does Louisiana. Ninety percent of all homeowners live within a few miles of the Gulf or the Atlantic Ocean. A hurricane crossing the Florida peninsula slows down, at best, only 15 miles per hour. Yet in spite of all this exposure, property insurance rates are cheaper in Florida than in Louisiana. In Perdido Key, on the Florida-Alabama border, many Louisianans have beach homes or condos. On average, they pay significantly less on these properties than they do on their homes in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other Louisiana cities. Property insurance rates for commercial real estate have gone down, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% to 40%, according realtor Steve Ekovich of the Tampa office of Marcus & Millichap, and insurance is more available.

Look at the figures released by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. In Louisiana, for every $100 of residential property insurance, the homeowner paid, on average, $1.006. In Florida, a similar homeowner paid only 69.3 cents. Louisiana has, hands down, the most expensive property insurance rates in the entire U.S. Yet Florida has much more exposure. Why?

Simply put, Florida officials, from the Governor on down, have made insurance affordability a front burner issue. In Louisiana, it has been little more than a blip on the radar. The Louisiana legislature began meeting just this week, and newspapers across the state ran stories listing the state’s top issues and concerns. Insurance wasn’t mentioned. Louisiana is a state with the highest automobile and property insurance rates in the entire comity, yet not one solution was suggested by Louisiana insurance officials or legislators.

Like Louisiana, Florida has a Citizens Property Insurance Company that is state created and sells to those homeowners who cannot find insurance anywhere else. The difference is in legislative support. From day one, the Florida Company has received state funds on a regular basis to build up reserves. By properly managing the company, Florida Citizens has almost $ 4 billion in cash in the bank to pay claims. There is also in place a bank line of credit and proceeds from municipal bonds that put total available funds at close to $7 billion.

Florida has also created a Hurricane Catastrophe Fund to back up and reinsurance losses for both Citizens and other private insurance companies operating in the state. This year, Citizens purchased nearly $9.8 billion in coverage. So all tolled, the Florida state created company has the ability to handle claims of up to $16.8 billion.

So how does Louisiana stack up? Well, for starters, due to inept and corrupt management before Katrina hit, no back up funds were arranged, and Katrina and Rita claims now exceed well over $1 billion. There was only minor reinsurance in place when the two major storms hit in 2005. The company was recently tagged with a $95 million legal judgment for failing to pay claims on time, and the former CEO is serving time in jail for misappropriating for his personal use hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no wonder why the company, created by the legislature and overseen by the Insurance Department, has been called the biggest financial disaster in Louisiana history.

There have been eight major hurricanes that have hit Florida since their legislature created Citizens. Yet 40 new companies have come into Florida to sell property insurance, and ten of their companies sell windstorm coverage right along the most exposed areas of the Florida coast. But to qualify for the available insurance in these storm-prone areas, strict building code requirements are in place. The roofs of such insured homes must have been updated since 1996. And all window protection, including required shutters, must meet specific state and local regulations.
Has Florida solved its property insurance problems? Hardly. Increasing costs and continuing hurricane exposure makes any effort to control insurance rates all the more challenging.

The difference between Florida and Louisiana is one of effort and priorities. The Florida Insurance Commissioner is lobbying hard for a national catastrophic program for gulf coast states. Florida congressmen are pushing a number of programs in Washington. The legislature meets regularly to discuss insurance issues, and Governor Scott makes no bones about the fact that insurance issues will be at the top of his legislative agenda.

There is a proactive effort in Florida to protect consumers. Here’s what the Miami Herald said this week about current Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty: “He has not hesitated to take on the insurance industry when he thought consumers were being scalped.” The new House Speaker said this week that property insurance issues are of huge concern to Florida legislators. “This is a very complex issue and I hope we see some solid solutions come forth, but it won’t be easy,” he said.

No, it won’t be easy, but there seems to be a major good faith effort by Florida officials to keep affordable insurance front and center. In Louisiana, property insurance issues have faded away and are barely a blip on the perennial screen, with little comment or concern expressed by any public official. So is it any wonder why Louisiana property owners continue to pay the highest rates in the nation?

Louisiana business and homeowners, when you look across the board at all the higher insurance costs they are absorbing, are paying some $3 billion more than if they were paying the national average of such costs. Think what an additional $3 billion in the Louisiana economy would mean to the economic vitality of the state. So why isn’t more being done by Louisiana officials? A good question to be asking as election season approaches.
*****

“It’s not hurricanes that are causing high insurance rates, but bad government policy,”
Policy analyst Michelle Minton
Peace and Justice.

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

Reapportionment Blues

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Shreveport, Louisiana

GET THE POLITICIANS OUT OF REAPPORTIONMENT

It’s redistricting time for legislators, both in Louisiana and throughout the country. Criticism that decisions are being shaped behind closed doors is raining down on this politically sensitive process. Lawmakers in my home state have scheduled a number of meetings to discuss the process of divvying up the various political boundaries including congressional, public service commission, and their own legislative districts. Many of the sessions are not open to the public. “Wrong!” cry the press and the good government groups. But the question should be, why are legislators meeting at all?

By federal law, all election districts must be reapportioned every 10 years to reflect the latest census figures. This puts Louisiana elections officials in a bind because census figures have just become available that reflect changes over the past ten years, and the state is just months away from a gubernatorial election. But should legislators, who have a vested interest in how the redistricting lines are drawn, actually be the ones to do the drawing, anyway?

The problem is one of gerrymandering, where district lines are not drawn to reflect geographical or political balance, but to favor the incumbent or some other partisan choice. When legislators do the redistricting, the norm seems to be that the state ends up with meandering footprints meticulously designed, it would seem, to ensure that no incumbent will face serious opposition, regardless of how the political winds are blowing. As one local political observer said, “Think about it this way. In elections, people choose their legislators. In reapportionment, legislators choose their people.”

Gerrymandering, by the way, means to manipulate the electoral boundaries for political gain so as to give undue influence to an incumbent or other favored candidate. The name comes from Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812 created winding districts that looked like salamanders to favor incumbents. Thus the convoluted word – “gerrymandering.”

What most voters want to avoid is the self-dealing by legislators where voting districts slash across communities of interest and geography. A blatant example of winding, disjointed gerrymandering is the Louisiana third congressional district. It winds from the Mississippi border south of New Orleans though the southern part of Jefferson Parish and all the way through south Louisiana up to Lafayette, some 300 miles in length.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger led an effort in his home state to get legislators out of the redistricting business. “The politicians have divided a neighborhood”, he says. “They have divided cities, towns and people, and this is what we what to eliminate. And this is why we need redistricting, because the district lines were drawn to favor incumbents rather than to favor the voters.”
So the question for Louisiana voters is this: Are they that concerned that the legislature is, for all practical purposes, creating their own voters? Is this healthy in the Bayou State -- or in any other state? Many think it’s not.
“The self-dealing quality of legislators drawing districts for themselves or for their partisans has basically collapsed the enterprise,” says Samuel Issacharoff, a law professor who is an expert on redistricting. “There’s an increasing sense of revulsion among voters at this self-dealing. It is somewhat scandalous that there are few competitive elections anymore.”

So what are the alternatives? What are other progressive states doing to transfer the power of redistricting to a system less driven by self-interest? Fourteen states have assigned the task to officials or panels outside the state legislature. And independent redistricting wears the cloak of good-government reform, as long as a consensus can be built on just who will serve on such panels. How do you pick the members? How can such a system be put in place that assures voters the final result will be fair, non-partisan, and keep local interests balanced?

Louisiana and every other state in the country have a number of bright people with solid business and educational backgrounds that are capable of taking on this controversial task. There are several respected demographers in the Bayou state, and a number of well-qualified professors at Louisiana universities. Retired judges fit the category as well as representatives of some of the state’s good government groups.

When I was first elected to the Louisiana legislature back in 1971, legislative redistricting had taken place just months before. But the reapportionment plan did not pass federal court muster, and was thrown out just weeks before the primary election date. Ed Steimel was head of the Public Affairs Research Council at the time, and was appointed by federal judge Frank Polozola to serve as a “special master” to redraw the district lines. Based on Steimel’s rework, the old plan was thrown out and the new court ordered plan put in place. There was general agreement that the Steimel Plan was fair and kept the district more cohesive and less spread out. (It must have been good as I won my senate seat easily in the first primary.)
One idea would be to create a Louisiana Fair Reapportionment Practices Commission made up from a cross section of various recommendations. Let nominations come from the legislature, the Supreme Court, the good government groups like PAR and CABL, the various college boards, and perhaps a key business group or two. Then put all the submissions in a hat, and draw out eleven names to serve as members to begin their work right after the new census data is made available.

The goal for such a commission is simple – put the important issue of redistricting into the hands of those with non-partisan interests, instead of those who in the past have been allowed to define the terms of their own cartel. Simply put, it’s just wrong for legislators to draw these districts and then run in them. There needs to be a better way.
*****
“If you’re hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the legislature. You’ll get the same kind of feeling and you won’t have to pay.” Sen. Dudley LeBlanc

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am, central time, on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.