Legislation is fast-tracked to encourage private flood insurance in Florida

Flood Insurance in Florida

While Florida has not come up with any solutions to stop us from paying the highest insurance rates in the nation to date, they are trying to help. They have introduced a bill that should make it more attractive for more insurance companies to come into the state and handle flood insurance. The problem is that only one company has taken the bait thus far! Hopefully they will be the first of many. For my own personal issue, my mortgagor decided that they were going to begin escrowing insurance (this is for primary home insurance, not flood) for me and charged $12,000 plus for that. It forced me to fire our long standing insurance broker and hire another. They have now provided me with a quote today for $6,000! Now that is some insurance reform! The other article is linked as it is more good news for Florida and it is also related to the wealth equality that we have talked about that is quickly becoming all the rage in Washington. There is a bill in the Senate now that will raise the minimum wage from $7.93 to $10.10. It would also raise the rate for employees who work on tips. This is a long overdue and necessary move that will definitely lift some of the poorest people. It is a significant increase and it is badly needed by these folks. It should help the economy too, with more money coming in. The biggest fear is that this could result in a loss of jobs. I don’t think it is going to happen but we will see. Certainly in Florida it seems like a big part of our improved economy was the fact that companies became leaner, meaning they shed employees. The state is heavily focused on attracting more businesses to the state which will bring more jobs. But other than the biotechnology cluster, there are no new industries that have been created or brought here to produce more jobs. This is going to be one of the central themes in the 2016 presidential election and I am looking forward to the ideas that each side will need to come up with. Hopefully we won’t have to wait until then.

http://www.bradenton.com/2014/01/09/4926665/legislation-is-fast-tracked-to.html