Deutch, Atwater to grill insurance execs

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Published January 17th, 2008
By John Johnston
Managing Editor

In a bi-partisan effort, State senators will grill insurance company executives about a failure to observe State Office of Insurance Regulation mandates about lowering property insurance rates.

Senator Jeff Atwater (R-North Palm Beach) put it more bluntly at a Jan. 10 press conference. “You didn’t just break your word. You broke the law,” he said of insurance companies that have failed to follow OIR mandates to lower rates.

Atwater will join Sen. Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton) in seeking answers.

Detuch said the insurance company executives will be “under oath” and will have to come up with “justification” about why OIR mandates have, in some cases, “been ignored.”

Senators will ask those questions in upcoming (Feb. 4 and 5) hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Property Insurance Accountability – a sub-committee of the Senate Banking and insurance Committee, and of which Deutch is the vice-chair.
Deutch said that legislative reforms passed in January 2007 included promises from the insurance industry that savings would be passed on to consumers.

With some companies, “that hasn’t’ happened,” Deutch said, “and we’re going to find out why.”

“I don’t think we should have to wait for the regulators to complete any formal process to get some relief,” said Deutch.

Under the reforms passed in January 2007, insurance company executives can be charged with perjury for false information in rate filings. And based on those filings, OIR has rejected about one-third of the rate filings submitted thus far this year.

Deutch did not say which insurance company executives would be called to testify.