Declarations

Florida Sweep

“While I understand the current challenge to find resources in this year’s budget, I am concerned about the recommendation to sweep $129.5 million from the Workers’ Compensation Administration Trust Fund. A trust fund sweep of this magnitude will require the state to raise Workers’ Compensation assessments—taxes—on Florida businesses as early as January 2009.”

—Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s response to Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget recommendations for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Bottom Line

“Allstate’s total lack of cooperation and responsiveness made it unproductive to continue the hearing. The bottom line is that it is not fair to Florida consumers that this company has not complied with our subpoenas and is not willing to explain to us their relationships with rating agencies, modeling companies and trade groups and how these relationships might have influenced the huge rate increases they have requested. I am as deeply concerned as any consumer at the lack of respect that Allstate has shown toward their statutory responsibilities.”

—Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty after abruptly halting a hearing on Jan.15 into Allstate Companies’ reinsurance program, their relationships to risk modeling companies, insurance rating organizations and insurance trade associations.

Uninsured Accident

“I thought you had to have insurance because it’s the law.”

—Cardella Cummings, 54, of Chattanooga, Tenn., after a motor vehicle accident with an uninsured motorist that left her dizzy and confused. An estimated 925,133 motorists in Tennessee do not have insurance, according to industry estimates. That is more than one in five licensed drivers on Volunteer State roads, the nation’s sixth-highest percentage of uninsured drivers. Alabama ranked second.

Innocent Landowners

“It’s audacious that AVX would try to blame its pollution on the poor people who’ve worked all their lives for their homes. These are innocent landowners.”

—Gene Connell, a lawyer representing Myrtle Beach, S.C., property owners near AVX Corp. headquarters — a South Carolina company being sued by neighbors for polluting groundwater with the chemical trichloroethylene around its plant.

Thumb Nose

“From an actuarial view, they (Allstate) didn’t do what they should have done. You can’t let a regulated industry thumb their nose at the regulators and the Legislature.”

—J. Robert Hunter, actuary and former Texas insurance commissioner who now works for the Consumer Federation of America, at a hearing before the Florida Senate Property Insurance Accountability Group.

Topics Florida