Amid an uproar over reports that Florida property insurance companies had shifted profits to affiliated firms while rates rose and carriers slid into insolvency a half-decade ago, former Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty weighed in on the controversy.
A consultant’s 2022 report for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, first reported by Florida newspapers, has raised some red flags that need to be addressed, but the analysis did not back up its conclusions and left out key information, McCarty told Insurance Journal. The claim that profits were diverted to managing general agents while carriers imploded is an erroneous conclusion and would have been akin to “killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
He urged legislators to hold off on using the report as a reason to undo landmark litigation reform and attorney-fee limits enacted in 2022.
“The worst thing you could do now is overreact and upset the fragile balance of investments in Florida. That’s the real fear,” he said.
Listen, if there were good profits don’t you think we’d have 300 companies trying to do business in Florida?
McCarty, appointed by the