Insurance Law

The Soft Parade of Dubious Risk Management Techniques

By George Wallace

If you were looking for a counter-example to the proposition that "Republican elected officials can be counted upon, at all times, to side with Large Corporate Interests," you need look no further than the relationship between Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist and the property-casualty insurance industry. 

In a nutshell, in the name of a populist "I'm protecting the little guy" strategy, Crist throughout his administration has fought even the simplest and most uncontroversial proposals that might make the Florida insurance market more rational.   Martin Grace at RiskProf has been doing an outstanding job of tracking Gov. Crist's questionable policies for several years, notably in his blog's "hurricanes" category.

Now, speaking of hurricanes . . .

It may have escaped your notice that Florida has not been an actual target of hurricanes for some several years.  It has not escaped the notice of Governor Crist.  And Governor Crist is prepared to explain how it comes to be -- apart from Sheer Dumb Luck and the innate complexities of our planet's wildly chaotic system of meteorological phenomena -- that Florida, in particular, has been spared the depredations of Nature and her extremes of low pressure recently.  

The answer, citizens, is simple: 

Governor Crist -- yea! he himself, whether personally or by proxy -- has the ear of the Almighty:

Crist told a group of real estate agents Friday that he's had prayer notes placed in the Western Wall in Jerusalem each year and no major storms have hit Florida. 

Crist noted that just before his election in 2006, Florida had been affected by a total of eight hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. 

'Do you know the last time it was we had a hurricane in Florida? It's been awhile. In 2007, I took my first trade mission. Do you know where I went?' asked Crist, a Methodist. 

He then told of going to the Western Wall and inserting a note with a prayer. He said it read, 'Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.'

The Lord, so far as has been determined, has not protected Florida from any of the other the difficulties attendant to having Charlie Crist as its Governor.  But hurricanes?  We've got that covered.

Jim Morrison and the Doors were famously skeptical of the risk management method endorsed here by the Governor of Florida, as should wise Floridians be:

Full post as published by Declarations and Exclusions on August 25, 2009 (boomark / email).