A push is underway by Florida Senator Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, to require the state insurance commissioner to be elected by the people, instead of being appointed for the position. Florida’s last election for an insurance commissioner was in 2002.
With homeowner insurance premiums on the rise and many companies scaling back business in Florida, consumers need an elected advocate to represent them, Klein told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He said that under the current system, people often don’t know whom to contact when they have a problem.
“I think this is a time and place when voters and homeowners need someone who they can look to directly to say, ‘Protect my home; protect my property; protect me from an insurance company who just raises my rates and cancels my policy,'” Klein said.
To avoid a potential conflict of interest that an elected commissioner might face, Klein said he would craft the amendment to state that whoever runs for the job would not be able to take campaign money from insurance companies.
Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty was traveling Tuesday and unavailable for comment, a spokesman said.
For years, voters elected the insurance commissioner. But in 1998, voters approved a constitutional amendment that combined two Cabinet positions, insurance commissioner and comptroller, into the chief financial officer job.
In 2002, after several years of infighting about whether the chief financial officer should regulate the insurance industry and other financial sectors, legislators agreed to have an appointed commissioner overseeing insurance. Klein voted for that, but said current problems forced him to reconsider.
Reinstating an elected insurance commissioner requires getting another constitutional amendment on the ballot so people could vote. Getting that would require a joint resolution approved by three-quarters of the Legislature.
House Insurance Committee chairman Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, said he’s open to discussing the idea.
Topics Florida
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