Florida ranked top economy in the U.S. for second year in a row

I understand what you and that other person are saying, but you don't care to listen to what I am saying. DeSantis has to try and find a better way... or he has to at least look like he's trying hard to figure out how to slow the insurance increases... I never said he would find cheaper insurance, but he has continue to work and to at least look like he's trying.

 

I 100% agree with you. Stupid rhetoric won’t work, like calling the insurers “woke,” like Patronis did when insurers walked from the State. But smart people searching for novel solutions might. That’s what good government does, amd we need that here, particularly for this crisis.

 

Just like many issues in nat’l and state gov, change in policy takes at least a few years to show up in results

to be fair, teachers are having a hard time everywhere. But it seems especially bad in Florida. Florida has some of the lowest teacher pay in the country. Also more politically motivated gov intervention. Desantis anti woke laws on what they will and can’t teach along with book burnings.

Back in March Florida had one of the worst teaching shortages per student in the country.

“Utah, California, Nevada and Florida join Arizona at the bottom of the list.”

America's teacher shortage broken down by state, from Florida to Utah

 

How about a 100% inflation in housing costs over 20 years? Or inflation in building costs? Etc? They're getting hit from every angle. How can you blame them? They could offer to insure FL homes, but the prices they would have to charge would create more outrage than just packing up and leaving.

That said, you've gotta love Rick and the "Conservative's" call for government intervention. Again, why we need to reinstitute poll tests.

 

That would be nice but he does not have any control over it. If they don't give the companies the rates they need to profit in Florida they will pull out of Florida like Farmers did or stop writing new business. That will make things even worse. Citizens just took a 14% rate increase to keep above water and purchased additional reinsurance to cover a historic type storms so it can protect tax payers from being accessed for large losses. The insurance crisis is a national issue and other states are starting to see rates go up like Florida, Texas, Louisiana and California have been seeing. Reinsurance is a huge part of the higher rates and that is a world wide issue and way out of any control the governor might have.

 

But if we just pretend that isn't the issue, then we can make it look like they are trying to do something. And isn't that more important than actually trying to do something?

 

Hmm, what do those four states have in common? It couldn't be increased risk for disasters due to temperature changes in either the water or land, could it?

 

A lot of coastline.

 

One issue with this take is the "climate change has substantially increased the risk of catastrophe" statement. Here is a list of storms by decade. I don't see an increase, I see that it looks like it is cyclical. Concerning Florida this shows we are fairly normal in number of storms affecting Florida over the past 25 years. Now the damage is much higher but that is because property values have skyrocketed over the past 25 years as well.

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade





List of Florida hurricanes - Wikipedia

 

The reverse correlation between a lot of the states with top 10 "best economies"/"best workforces" but bottom 20 "quality of life" is interesting.

 

Very interesting.

I did a quick search and found that reports find differing results. They show the velocity of Hurricanes have strengthened over the past 30 years, and there’s a prediction for particular increases in stringstrong to Cat 4 and 5 in the near future. Here’s one below:

https://www.c2es.org/content/hurricanes-and-climate-change/

While I understand there’s argument as to whether climate change is man-made vs nature, or whether there is indeed any climate change, the political argument is entirely irrelevant to the question of insurance risk management. Actuaries and insurers look to reports and studies to predict and manage risk, as others have pointed out above. Their analysis is blind and indifferent to politics, they want to ensure profit.

 

We’ve had several possible “generational storms” and 175mph monsters that we were fortunate didn’t hit (or that weakened before they hit). It’s like playing Russian Roullette.

I can’t recall any storms going well above CAT 5 back in the 80’s or 90’s, Andrew was one of the most powerful at landfall. But we’ve had several of those more powerful storms tracking at us in the last 10 or so year (Irma was out there at 175mph, but wasn’t a cat 5 when it hit FL because Cuba deflected the blow, I believe it was CAT 3?). So that 175monster goes in the books as a much lesser “boring” Cat 3 storm at U.S. landfall.

Ian also showed us the threat of rapid intensification, as well as its massive size.

Going forward the idea of “rapid intensification” is scary. Lots of folks in Naples and Fort Myers were utterly unprepared for Ian because that was supposed to be a weaker Cat 3 heading to Tampa, all of a sudden it be became a cat 5 aimed at Southwest Florida. Only in the 24hours before did the threat of massive coastal flooding become discussed. Hell, you had people evacuating FROM Tampa to Fort Myers (including a few that laughably evacuated TO and got stranded on Sanibel Island, which had the 10’-15’ storm surge).

 

My issue is that some articles will play loose with the data. I showed historical numbers and anyone can see that we aren't seeing a huge increase in hurricanes hitting Florida nor seeing a huge increase in level of intensity. I get that they want to ensure a profit. Just saying that anyone saying that hurricanes have increased and their intensity has increased doesn't match historical data.

 

Obviously, the number of hurricanes that have hit Florida the last several years is a major factor in the rising insurance rates. But at the same time, the cost of thousands of Floridians taking advantage of some serious loopholes in the system and basically getting free roofs, despite not having any actual storm damage, has been a major factor also. The state is well aware of what is happening but has not done enough to stop the scam.

 

That definitely happens, and I don't think a legislative fix is easy because every case is unique, and there are strong cases on both sides. Given the relatively short lifespan of roofs, the significantly higher costs associated with water intrusion when roofs are damaged, and the fact that the average homeowner probably doesn't have $15,000 sitting around for a new roof, I've been trying to think of a practical solution. Would it make sense for homeowners to include (with their taxes and insurance escrow payments), a monthly payment toward an ultimate roof replacement so folks aren't just waiting for a wind event to submit a claim? Maybe the "new roof" account balance would even be assignable to a home buyer in the event of a sale. I'm sure people smarter than I have better ideas, but I can't believe there's not a better way to do this.

 

I agree with the last two post. A lot of the insurance problems of the last 10 years have been people taking advantage of liberal wording in the policies. The companies that sold the policies have to take some of the blame for not seeing it coming. First it was sinkhole claims that were paid after attorneys got involved and people got paid for settling from foundations that were built on clay that should not have been covered. The worst I have seen was the roofs getting replaced. Whole neighborhoods would file claims as roofers went door to door. Many times they were claiming the damage was from a hail storms in past years. Roofers and contractors followed where hail storms had happened and went door to door. Most of the roofs were old with brittle shingles and the cause of any damage was questionable. Now companies will not insure a home if the roof is over 15 years old in most cases. The insurance companies will not fight in court over a 15k roof claim most days as it cost them a lot more to go to court than the amount of the claim and they can still lose. They pay the claims and raise the rates to cover the losses and future claims. There is a lot more to it but I don't have time to type a book. I have been in the insurance agency business for 40 years and the last 15 years have been rough sledding. In the last ten years here in Florida I would guess the average homeowner rate has tripled even with much larger deductibles. Auto rates have doubled in the last 5 years for low risk drivers with good credit. For younger drivers or drivers with questionable credit or no credit it is worse.