News & Resources

After discussing market considerations in setting insurance rates, we turn to recent activity in Congress. As you recall from our last two posts, insurance companies are required to set rates based on risk and loss expectations, not on supply or demand issues. Florida regulators maintain that insurance companies are increasing premiums because they can, not because they have to: Insurers realize that there is very little competition in some parts of the state and that they have, pardon the insurance pun, a captive audience.

In December 2014, the Consumer Federation of America raised some questions about how Allstate was calculating auto insurance premiums. The CFA alleged that Allstate was basing those premiums on “marketplace considerations.” These marketplace considerations focus on competition and supply and demand — factors that in most industries would certainly influence price.

Florida consumers may not realize it, but a heated discussion is brewing between their property/casualty insurance companies and the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation. The subject is price optimization, and the OIR recently reminded p/c insurers that state law prohibits its use.

In October 2010, Slate published an article online about payday lenders and a particularly egregious practice — one that went beyond the outrageous interest rates and failure to disclose fees. It all started with a site that promised to match borrowers with payday lenders.

We often talk about insurance being a highly regulated industry, but we wonder if we have explained just how far those regulations go. The state must approve rates and forms, for example, but the state also lays out rules for how agencies, brokers and insurers deal with their customers.

We are finishing up our discussion of the Consumer Federation of California’s complaint to that state’s insurance department about Geico Insurance Co.’s web-based application. According to the CFC, the app offers certain applicants policies with coverage limits that violate state consumer protection and auto insurance laws. The website asks for information in violation of state law as well, the CFC claims.

We are picking up the discussion from our last post — the discussion about the Consumer Federation of California’s complaint to the state’s insurance department about Geico Insurance Co. The problem, the CFC says, is that the Geico online application’s rating process requires applicants to supply information in violation of state law and then uses that information to discriminate against certain categories of applicants.

We were talking in our last post about insurance and traveling and the hassle of dealing with insurance claims for things that happen away from home. Most of us are familiar with the hassle that comes from going out-of-network with a health care claim. Put a few hundred miles between you and your in-network providers, and things get even more complicated.

We are talking about the impact that warmer relations with Cuba will have on the people and businesses of Florida. As we said in our last post, the state is home to the majority of Cuban Americans. This thaw has personal meaning for 900,000 citizens of Miami.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio blasted the Obama administration recently for relaxing restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba. The change in policy, Rubio argued, ignores human rights issues that continue to exist in Cuba. Further, he said, our expanded interaction with the country will not inspire the Castro regime to change its ways. Sending tourists to Havana will not make life any easier for pro-democracy nationals. Lowering trade barriers will not force the Cuban government to curtail its use of violence in dealing with opponents or critics.