Heartland Institute to Florida Insurance Commissioner:
“Regulators should not be management consultants”

Following The Heartland Institute’s release of Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) emails, the state’s insurance commissioner, Kevin McCarty, wrote to Heartland defending his agency’s actions in the weeks leading up to the insolvency of the Northern Capital Group of companies.
Christian R. Cámara, Florida director [...]

A Supreme Court of Michigan’s recent decision on insurance regulation is a big victory for consumers.  The state had tried to prevent insurance companies from charging consumers based on risk.  That policy would have led to higher premiums for good car drivers by giving risky drivers lower rates.  Besides the unfairness of such a cross-subsidy, the net [...]

 
American Consumer Institute Analysis: Relying On Undercapitalized Insurers during Hurricane Season Puts Florida Homeowners at Extreme Risk
 
Washington, DC (July 1, 2010) – A ConsumerGram written by FSU professor and ACI expert Dr. Patricia Born details how regulatory efforts to keep Florida’s homeowner insurance rates artificially low has resulted in undercapitalized companies, which have “placed the [...]

The Importance of Being Capitalized
By Patricia Born 
Efforts to encourage insurers to enter the Florida homeowners market do not appear to be meeting their objectives. The attractiveness of coverage offered by private insurers is putting consumers at an even greater risk as the premiums collected and available capital will likely prove insufficient for paying claims. Florida has [...]

Here comes another potential bailout.
The newly released GAO report, “Natural Catastrophe Insurance Coverage Remains a Challenge for State Programs,” supports ACI’s conclusion that state funds “discourage private market involvement and mitigation.”  The report finds that some states are setting insurance prices below cost, driving out private insurers and putting nearly involvent state-run “public options” in their place. 
So that [...]

The following is a link to an interesting Wall Street Journal Article.  The article discusses how regulations have increased bank costs and, logically, banks are now considering passing these costs along to consumers in the form of higher prices, such as bank fees and the end of free checking accounts.  This demonstrates that consumers are [...]

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We are pleased to announced the addition of Professor Andy Puckett as a finance expert for the American Consumer Institute.  Dr. Puckett is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance at the University of Tennessee.  He joined the University of Tennessee faculty in 2009 from the University of Missouri, where he taught investments to both [...]

ACI is pleased to announce the addition of another top public policy expert.  Dr. Powell holds the Whitbeck-Beyer Chair of Insurance and Financial Services in the Department of Economics and Finance at University of Arkansas-Little Rock.  He earned a Ph.D. in Insurance and Risk Management at the University of Georgia.  Most of his research focuses [...]

The Florida Governor has once again vetoed legislation that would have helped protect homeowners in the state.  The veto preserves the current regulatory policy of underfunding insurers (including the state’s own insurer-of-last-resort) from having sufficient capital reserves to pay for homeowners for their losses.  The legislation would have permitted insurance companies to collect modestly higher premiums in order to guarantee [...]