TAMPA, Fla. – Florida is just days away from a special legislative session to formally show support for Israel, and Democrats are promising to bring up the state’s property insurance crisis.
8 On Your Side Investigator Mahsa Saeidi looks into a state senator’s new business venture.
Republican State Senator Joe Gruters is trying to start a new property insurance company. He says it will increase competition and lower rates for everyone, including his constituents.
But some Democrats say he’s trying to profit from a crisis.
Senator Gruters has helped transform Florida’s property insurance market. He’s supported reforms that critics say favour insurance companies at the expense of homeowners.
In December, he voted for a law that makes it harder to sue insurers. Now he wants to set up his own insurance company: Village Protection Insurance.
We have seen the presentation to investors and it promises big returns.
The strategy outlined is to take policies from Citizens, the state-backed insurer.
“Take-outs represent a planned 70% of force count” in the first year, the document says.
The plan for the future is “orderly premium growth”.
State Representative Anna V. Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, has concerns about the senator’s business venture.
“What Sen. Gruters and others are proposing is basically to create a private option that would charge people more and scoop them up when they get kicked off Citizens. If that sounds predatory, that’s because it is,” she said.
Lawmakers will be in Tallahassee on Monday, the start of a special session, to show support for Israel and sanction Iran.
Eskamani plans to bring up property insurance.
