TAMPA, Fla. — ABC Action News continues our conversation with Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis, as his office oversees Florida's fractured insurance market. As part of a month-long series, we are taking your questions, concerns and stories directly to state leaders.
This week's conversation is about rising rates. Below are three of the dozens of viewer-submitted questions we took directly to CFO Patronis and his response in his own words.
QUESTION 1: I understand that we're in Florida and there's a lot of loss possibly, but there has to be some sort some sort of a cap? - Dera Eads, Carrollwood
ANSWER: "You cannot have insurance caps. If you put insurance caps and companies will they'll be limited the amount of coverage you can get. You know, I wish I could snap fingers and say we have caps, but if you don't allow an insurance company to write anymore, then you're really going to have problems because then there will be no insurance available. There is a cap how much profit they can make. We say insurance companies you can make 5% . Okay, that's the cap that's cap, but let me remind people, that gallon of milk cost twice as much to three years ago. So you can't build something on 2017 prices anymore. You know, everything costs more including contract construction. That's another reason why your premiums cost so much more."
QUESTION: Why are insurance companies are allowed to price gouge? - Sherri Koper
ANSWER: "It's inflation that Washington does zero about and I hope you'll say that part because Washington hasn't done squat about the inflation crisis in the cost of everything from gas to milk. The direct cost for every piece of lumber, every wire, every bolt, every nut that is going into that new home, that increases the cost per square foot over double that becomes a replacement cost that shows up in your premium every single day."
QUESTION 3 : (Flood insurance rates) Any possibility that he could ask for extra funding or do something to help subsidize some of this flood insurance for mobile homeowners? Whatever you can to help us that can't help ourselves. - Jane Patsva Morgan, Largo
ANSWER: "We're seeing an increase at the federal level and flood insurance rates, Florida is a donor state, so we screen but they [Senator Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio] can actually move the needle. Okay. So our office has been working hand in hand making sure that we, when we get calls like that, it makes sure they're hearing okay. So a couple things also that happened legislatively, is we told people hey, if you're going to get Citizens Insurance , you're going to have to get flood insurance also, that became a huge cost driver. It sounds like the responsible thing to do. But in the case of this woman here, it's breaking her. But then what you have with Hurricane Ian, you had this flood event that moved across the state, this rain event that move across the state, and you had 1000-year water event in Central Florida that never seen flooding like that ever before. And look, that's up for debate. I know that's a tough expense. But like I said, you know, go talk to people in Orlando. They never I mean, people lost everything. And they had nowhere to turn."
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.