BestWeek: Florida Reforms May Cause Market Storm.OLDWICK, N.J. -- If the forecasts for more frequent and severe hurricanes hold true, industry experts predict a new Florida property insurance law may be a house of cards house of cards n. pl. houses of cards A flimsy structure, arrangement, or situation that is in danger of collapsing or failing: "The collapse of the rupiah . . . that encourages the exit of the private market and opens the state up for legal action by insurers, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. an exclusive story in this week's BestWeek. The law signed by Gov. Charlie Crist Charles Joseph "Charlie" Crist, Jr. (born July 24 1956), is an American politician of the Republican Party and the current Governor of Florida. Crist served as state attorney general from 2003 to 2007.[1] Crist was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania. on Jan. 25, requires Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state's last resort insurer, to increase its risk load while lowering rates. The bill, House Bill 1A, also makes the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund a take-all-comers mechanism whose coffers would grow from some $7 billion presently to more than $30 billion. Adding to this, an emergency rule Crist issued on Jan. 29 mandates an immediate rate freeze and moratorium on nonrenewals and cancellations. "In one way, what (the legislation) says is 'get out.' That's sort of the message insurers get," Bob Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute told BestWeek. "But if you scratch below the surface, politicians are going to be looking at solutions within the private industry." Also in BestWeek, Best's Global Insurance Composite Index Composite Index A grouping of equities, indexes or other factors combined in a standardized way, providing a useful statistical measure of overall market or sector performance over time. Also known simply as a "composite". finished the week of Feb. 1 up 12.96% from a year ago. The composite index reflects the performance of 184 insurance stocks. The week's top performers were Sierra Health Services health services Managed care The benefits covered under a health contract ; Independence Holding; UnumProvident Corp.; StanCorp Financial Group Inc. and Citizens Financial. The bottom five performers were Hiscox plc; Selective Insurance Group; Allstate Corp.; Catlin Group and Prudential plc This article is about the British company. For the American company, see Prudential Financial. For places named after the company, see Prudential. Prudential plc (LSE: PRU, NYSE: PUK) is a United Kingdom-based financial services company. . BestWeek is published by A.M. Best for insurance professionals. To subscribe, please call A.M. Best's customer service department at (908) 439-2200, ext. 5742, or e-mail your request to customer_service@ambest.com. Founded in 1899, A.M. Best Company is a full-service credit rating organization dedicated to serving the financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. industries, including the banking and insurance sectors. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. |
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