Rod Smith Campaigns for Real Insurance Reform, Relief for Florida

Senator Rod Smith asked voters to contact their legislators to express their opposition to Senate Bill 1980 as the official start of hurricane season kicked off.

While the bill includes $715 million to pay down the debt in Citizens Property Insurance, Smith says, that money does not even cover half of the estimated $1.7 billion shortfall facing the state's insurer of last resort. Even worse, SB 1980 does absolutely nothing to ease the cost of insurance premiums for homeowners or fix the long-term structural problems in Florida's property insurance market; in fact this bill gave the insurance the power to raise rates every year without seeking state approval.

He listed some of the reasons that Florida needs real insurance reform and relief:

- State Farm, Florida's largest insurer, has requested premium rate increases by an average of 70 percent statewide.
- Allstate Floridian, currently serving 650,000 policyholders, recently announced it is dropping 174,000 customers.

Rod Smith is a Democratic candidate for Governor.