KEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWSKEYNEWS F.I.R.M. | Continued
will ruin your carpet, electrical sys- tem, kitchen will have to be torn out, and if you happen to have roof damage that comes in and drips on your carpet, Citizen’s won’t pay for your carpet because the flood ru- ined it. Tey should be deducting that from our models, but that’s not the case. So we believe the model is wrong in that respect. Tey also have this thing that all homes con- structed before 1991 are considered weak throughout the whole state. Tat’s one of the rules of model-making in the state of Florida, so they considered most of the homes built in our county that were built before 1991 and considered all of them weak. Equivalent to the weak buildings in the Georgia bor- der, the center of the state of Florida where they have been de- signing buildings for 80-90 mile per hour winds, have always been built for hurricanes. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, we built for hurricanes, and in the 1950s and 1960s we even codified putting steel in our headers, putting steel in the corners of any concrete build- ings, and all the buildings from
Annalise Mannix F.I.R.M. executive director
back then have hurricane straps. A weak building assumes you have a garage, similar to a ranch house where when the wind comes in from the garage it can blow the roof off. And when the wind blows the roof off the garage, it’s blowing a roof off the rest of the house. After we saw this part of the model, we asked Ervin Higgs for the number of homes in the Keys with garages and found about 5,000, but they are not techni- cally garages because if the roof isn’t con- nected to the system like an old ranch house up North.
JS I read a book about 25 years ago, “Te Invisible Bankers,” about the insurance industry and how it operates and how, for example, at the state level we have insurance commissioners who are supposed to be watchdogs and work for the gov- ernment and for the people yet those commissioners are insurance executives themselves. It’s a revolv- ing door back and forth between government and the people they regulate. Is that still true today? AMIt’s disheartening. When you go to committees like the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss
Methodologies, which determines what the models should have in them, there’s insurance industry people or actuaries that happen to work for insurance companies. It seems to be a conflict of interest. Tey are not 50/50. You would like to be on a board where maybe half the people do have insurance ties, so in return you can have their input, and half the people shouldn’t have insurance ties. Tat would make you a little bit happier, but that’s not the way it is.
JS I’m sure there are insurance in- dustry lobbyists who are powerful. What’s the counterpart to that? AMVery few. We are part of a coalition of groups this year. Public adjusters might have lobbyists, but their issues are not necessarily 100 percent our issues. We stay loosely coordinated with some, but there are few you can turn to in this state that can help the consumer. We have a consumer advocate in the state for insurance, but that person is a state employee.
JS As a citizen who wants to learn about windstorm insurance, thank goodness for F.I.R.M. AMWe are looking for people to be on the board or a sub-committee. It takes a while to get up to speed, but in a year or two you will know everything there is to know about insurance. e
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www.konklife.com Highlights
lFormed February 2006 to fight excessive, discriminatory and unaffordable residential, condo and commercial property insurance rates in Monroe County. Grassroots organization of 32 original members with over 5,100 now. Membership free. Mission: “concerned citizens, homeowners united to stop unfair, unaffordable property insurance premiums.” lHelped repeal proposed 25 per- cent residential windstorm premium and reduced residential rates from Citizens Property Insurance Corpo- ration rated by 30 percent. l2008 Florida legislative session fought and won for a 10 percent max increase per year. lSupports development Federal National Catastrophic Program or Coastal Catastrophic Program. lInforms members on issues for contacting legislators, governor and State Office of Insurance Regulation. lMonroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers current president and charter member. In 2006, repre- sented F.I.R.M.’s Media and Strategy Committee in Tallahassee. In 2007, appointed to Florida’s Task Force on Citizens Property Insurance Claims Handling and Resolution. lMayor Carruthers and Annalise Mannix opposed controversial SB 405 to state legislatures resulting in defeat. (/bill would have reduced the window to file a complaint from five to three years.) Carruthers and Mannix also lobbied for Monroe County to be exempt from all bills passed related to windstorm dam- age, as the building codes in Monroe County are stricter than other coun- ties and most damage incurred is from floodwater, not wind.
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