News & Resources

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation looked at third-party, or “stranger-originated life insurance” in some detail before faced with the Pasco County offer. The OIR researched the issue in-depth in 2010 — even holding a public hearing in August that year. Stranger-originated life insurance policies, shorthanded in the industry as STOLIs, had come onto regulators’ radar all over the country a few years earlier, when insurance companies had noticed a decided increase in the number of STOLIs being sold.

It is easy to be cynical these days. Someone offers you a great deal on furniture, for example, and your first thought is, “What’s wrong with it?” Another person does a kind gesture, and you ask, “What’s in it for him?” Expect the worst, and you will never be disappointed.

We are still talking about a recent Florida Office of Insurance decision. The OIR was looking over a proposal from an investor group, represented by Pollock Financial Group LLC, to purchase life insurance policies for all employees of the Pasco County School District. Pollock had pitched the program — the Benefit Stabilization Funding Program — to school districts around the state. Pasco was either the first or the only district to consider the program and to send it to the OIR for review.

We are still talking about an unusual business proposition that the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation recently nixed. Pollock Financial Group LLC had approached Pasco County with an offer to purchase life insurance policies for employees of the county school district. Pollock was looking for a “nontraditional” opportunity for a group of investors. The county and the state were looking for legal pitfalls presented by the nontraditional opportunity, and they found some big ones.

The subject of insurable interest does not come up often. It looks as if the last time we touched on it here was almost four years ago. Those posts (here) covered some basic insurance concepts, but they were not about a Florida case. Now, thanks to an offer from a group of investors, Pasco County has its own insurable interest story to tell.

Over our last few posts, we have reviewed some of the higher-profile provisions of the Mendendez-Grimm Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013 that President Barack Obama signed into law on March 21, 2014. In a flurry of activity after the flood insurance premium hikes calculated under the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 stunned policyholders in the last quarter of 2013, Congress was able to cobble together a law that reversed many of the provisions of Biggert-Waters.

President Barack Obama has signed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013 into law. While both parties supported the measure — the “Menendez-Grimm” law, for short — no sooner was the ink dry on the act than lawmakers began to plan “real” reform. The Tampa Bay News Weekly, for example, reported this week that Florida Congressman David Jolly has introduced a bill that would extend some of the flood insurance reforms in Menendez-Grimm to commercial properties and second homes.

We have a friend who believes that “grandfathering” is the most confusing term used by rulemakers. We suggested she read the tax code for other candidates. The subject came up because we were about to explain more provisions of the Menendez-Grimm Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013, and grandfathering is front and center.

News sources are saying that President Obama is “set to sign” the flood insurance bill we discussed in our last post. There were whispers of a veto earlier this year because the White House had some qualms about the bill (see our Jan. 31, 2014, post). A report from the Office of Management and Budget had questioned the fiscal wisdom of rolling back the planned rate increases from the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. If rates did not increase, the National Flood Insurance Program would continue to operate with a significant deficit, the OMB said.

The U.S. Senate has passed the Menendez-Grimm bill, also known as HR 3370, also known as the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013, also known — informally, at least — as the antidote to Biggert-Waters. After months of wrangling in both the House and the Senate, the bill is finally making its way to the president’s desk, where it may or may not be signed. We have been following the action for the past few months.