A brand new investigation into Florida’s property insurance coverage business is about to start, elevating important questions on insurer profitability, monetary transparency, and the true causes behind skyrocketing premiums for policyholders. As reported by Lawrence Mower in Florida Home to Examine Whether or not Property Insurers Hid Income With Accounting Methods, the Florida Home of Representatives is launching a probe to find out whether or not property insurers have been utilizing accounting maneuvers to masks their earnings whereas concurrently justifying charge hikes.
For years, Florida policyholders have confronted steep will increase in property insurance coverage premiums, with insurers blaming rising litigation prices, fraud, and pure catastrophe dangers. Nonetheless, the Florida Home’s current transfer suggests there could also be extra to the story. Lawmakers need to know whether or not insurers have been shifting cash inside their company constructions—presumably to affiliated reinsurance corporations or different entities—to make their major insurance coverage companies seem much less worthwhile than they really are.
I and different insurance coverage business critics argue that some Florida insurance coverage corporations have exploited advanced accounting techniques to siphon off earnings whereas portraying themselves as struggling companies. If true, these monetary methods may very well be artificially inflating the necessity for larger premiums and deceptive each regulators and customers in regards to the monetary well being of the business.
This isn’t a brand new scheme. In 2008, I wrote Insurance coverage Business Claims And Fee Practices Come Beneath Public Scrutiny, and famous the next:
Robert Hunter has lengthy studied and criticized many actions of the insurance coverage business. He’s an actuary by commerce, a former insurance coverage commissioner, and serves because the Insurance coverage Director for the Shopper Federation. Florida Insurance coverage Commissioner Tom McCarty requested Hunter to testify in regards to the “duping” and alleged misinformation generated by insurance coverage business commerce associations. Hunter offered a prolonged report: Property/Casualty Insurance coverage in 2008: Overpriced Insurance coverage and Underpaid Claims Lead to Unjustified Income, Padded Reserves, and Extreme Capitalization, J. Robert Hunter, January 10, 2008. He detailed and offered proof that the insurance coverage business has made important earnings and continues to take action regardless of offering alleged propaganda attempting to show in any other case.
My impression of his testimony is that insurance coverage firm executives attempt to disguise true earnings being made to maintain charges as excessive as attainable. Hunter basically indicated that insurance coverage firm administration lied in its filings and practices. At one level, he referred to as the actions presumably ‘unlawful’ when Senators had been questioning if felony exercise occurred. From expertise, most sincere individuals and company representatives brazenly focus on and present paperwork when authorities demand solutions and proof of actions. Dishonest individuals and entities disguise and attempt to keep away from immediately answering the identical as a result of guilt could be admitted. Anyone watching Allstate answering and avoiding manufacturing of requested info final week in the course of the Workplace of Insurance coverage Regulation listening to has to have an impression that Allstate is hiding one thing actually unhealthy.
One of many major areas of focus of the present investigation will doubtless be the connection between Florida-based insurers and their affiliated reinsurance entities. Many insurers buy reinsurance from corporations they’re financially related to, permitting them to shift premiums and probably obscure true earnings. This follow raises issues about whether or not these insurers are gaming the system—paying inflated reinsurance costs to associated entities whereas passing the price onto customers.
Florida lawmakers and client advocates have lengthy suspected that inside monetary preparations between affiliated corporations could also be a key issue behind the relentless charge will increase imposed on owners. The upcoming investigation goals to carry transparency to those transactions and decide whether or not legislative or regulatory adjustments are crucial to guard policyholders from unfair pricing practices.
If the investigation confirms that insurers have been manipulating their monetary reporting, it might set off a wave of reforms. Lawmakers might push for elevated oversight of insurer monetary practices, stronger client protections, and potential authorized penalties for corporations discovered to have misled regulators.
For Florida owners already burdened by excessive insurance coverage prices, this inquiry provides a glimmer of hope. If insurers are discovered to be participating in misleading monetary techniques, state officers might take steps to make sure that charges are set extra pretty.
Insurance coverage regulators should demand and obtain clear, sincere monetary reporting from insurance coverage corporations to correctly decide if the requested charge is truthful. Policyholders should know whether or not their rising premiums are genuinely justified by elevated dangers and losses or if they’re the results of hidden company revenue methods.
Thought For The Day
“We are able to simply forgive a toddler who’s afraid of the darkish; the actual tragedy of life is when males are afraid of the sunshine.”
—Plato
