The GOP legislature and DeSantis are complete imbeciles. This is not the type of thing rational people or state government screws up. Florida Law Aimed at Banning Bad Actors from Scamming Residents Unwittingly Blocks Every Bank from Conducting Business in the State https://www.latintimes.com/florida-...wittingly-blocks-every-bank-conducting-564154 A new Florida law meant to protect residents from investment fraud inadvertently barred nearly every major bank from conducting securities business in the state, halting transactions on corporate bonds and private shares for four weeks. The law, which took effect Oct. 1, was designed to ease fundraising for startups while blocking criminal actors from the investment space. However, because of how the law was written, it appeared to prohibit banks penalized by regulators like the SEC from selling securities. The law effectively impacted all major U.S. banks, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which have faced some form of regulatory penalty. (More at above url)
Doesnt this tend to happen when a major hurricane destroys coastal homes and costs owners billions in damage? Last two hurricanes were pretty nasty to the coast and it is impossible to get flood insurance on the coast now...
Such a wonderful state for real estate. Remember to thank DeSantis and the Republican legislature for their insurance and condo assessment policies which directly led to this situation. Florida now has 4 of the top 10 American cities where home prices are plummeting the most — is now the perfect time to retire down south? Or is it the riskiest time? https://moneywise.com/a/ch-synd/florida-now-has-4-of-the-top-10-american-cities-where-home-prices
And it had the highest rising cities two years ago. GWB shocked to discover what goes up, goes back down (like it did in every other state that saw similar rises). But DeSantis!
Florida is totally into MAGA. Pornhub reveals each state’s top election night searches — you won’t believe what Florida was looking at https://nypost.com/2024/11/09/lifes...you-wont-believe-what-florida-was-looking-at/ '“MAGA” was the Sunshine State’s top relative search term, proving Republican politics and raunchy porn could be a popular combination.' I assume MAGA porn features videos of an old, fat, naked man with orange skin.
The DeSantis administration decides the best way to handle Florida's insurance problems is to threaten and intimidate the insurance rating agencies. Florida regulators issue subpoenas to insurance industry critic Weiss Ratings has criticized the health and claims-handling of Florida insurers. https://www.tampabay.com/news/flori...e-weiss-ratings-citizens-subpoena-state-farm/ TALLAHASSEE — Florida regulators issued subpoenas to a Palm Beach Gardens-based ratings agency last monthto force it to justify its “dire predictions” for the state’s insurance market. Weiss Ratings founder Martin Weiss wrote in October that homeowners insurers are “on the brink of a collapse” and that homeowners are at a “high risk” of not being paid for theirclaims related to hurricanes Helene and Milton. The Office of Insurance Regulation demandedthat Weiss and his company turn over any emails, text messages and other records that back up those statements by Nov. 30. “We take our responsibility to protect consumers very seriously, and we will not ignore any potential warning signs,” the cover letter from Deputy Commissioner Sheryl Parker states. Weiss said he hasn’t decided whether to comply. His statements, which were posted on his company’s website, were protected by the First Amendment, he said. He said he’s had a good relationship with Florida officials in the past and had offered to help regulators in any way he could. He doesn’t know why they didn’t ask for the information first. “All they had to do is give us a call, just send us an email,” Weiss said. The subpoena was issued using a state law that gives regulators broad authority to investigate the insurance market. “Weiss’ agency claims to be independent and thorough, and if they really want to warn consumers about their dire claims, they should have no problem answering this subpoena,” agency spokesperson Kylie Mason said in a statement. Weiss’ company financially rates cryptocurrencies, insurance companies, banks and other companies. Unlike most ratings agencies, companies don’t pay for ratings. That financial model has given him more freedom to criticize insurers — a 1992 New York Times headline called him “the bad boy of insurance ratings.” But his subscriber newsletters can take on a conspiratorial tone, such as warning of the federal government taking over Americans' bank accounts. In 2006, his company paid $2.1 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle claims he misled subscribers about the performance of some investments. His company has also bucked the industry during Florida’s insurance crisis. Unlike insurers and the agencies that rate them, Weiss has questioned the effectiveness of legal reforms approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which made it harder for consumers to sue insurance companies. In June, Weiss released never-before-seen data from 2022 showing that Floridians had the lowest chance of getting paid when filing a homeowners insurance claim, with more than a third closed without payment. Weiss also noted that subsidiaries of State Farm and Allstate — two critical players in Florida’s shaky insurance market — closed nearly half of their claims last year without making a payment, the highest rate among private insurers. He told the Times/Herald that insurers were “stiffing their customers.” On Tuesday, the Times/Herald reported that Weiss calculated that state-run Citizens Property Insurance had the highest rate of closing claims of any insurer in Florida last year, at 50.4%. Citizens did not dispute the data. On Thursday, Chief Insurance Officer Jay Adams told a Citizens board that it “makes sense” that the company would have a high rate of closing claims without payment because it’s insuring some of the riskiest policies in the state. Adams said the story was “misleading.” He said the high rate of claims closed without payment is because of high hurricane deductibles and denied claims stemming from flood damage, which isn’t covered by Citizens. He also said the company gets claims from “confused” former customers who don’t know to contact their new, private insurer. He couldn’t give a precise breakdown of why claims are denied. Weiss said he was standing by the statements targeted by Florida regulators. He said his statement that insurers were ”abusing their power to deny damage claims as a deliberate tactic to conserve cash and avoid bankruptcy” was evident. Insurance companies will often close claims, then pay out a settlement from a lawsuit later — indicating the claim was legitimate in the first place. “Otherwise, why would they pay them out in the future?” he said. Weiss said his statement from October that Florida insurers were “on the brink of a collapse” was actually an “understatement.” “Florida is already in a state of collapse,” he said.
It's like the Florida state government is completely incompetent --- failure after failure after failure. At some point it almost looks deliberate. Florida has a competency problem. Here's the latest example | Editorial Too many of Florida’s important government programs fail the state’s residents. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/20...tency-problem-heres-latest-example-editorial/ Here we go again with an all-too-familiar Florida pastime: Residents need help, and the state has helpful programs in place, but those programs fail to deliver. No one expects perfection from the government, but these failures leave Floridians wondering whether the incompetence is contagious or, worse, incurable. The latest example comes from the state’s Medicaid management system, operated by the giant consulting firm Deloitte. In 2021, the Legislature passed a law that allowed eligible new mothers to receive 12 months of continuous health coverage after giving birth. The upgrade helped ensure that mothers and their babies received crucial medical care. It was a wise investment in the state’s future. Now comes news from a federal lawsuit that an unknown number of eligible Florida mothers have abruptly lost coverage. They receive letters from the state Department of Children and Families saying their coverage will end well before 12 months, sending them scrambling during an already stressful time to figure out what happened and how to regain benefits. The state bungling jeopardizes the health of mothers and babies. The state estimated that nearly 20,000 women were removed from pregnancy coverage as of March 2024, but it’s unclear how many lost coverage incorrectly. The 20,000 estimate could be low since it excluded anyone removed from coverage due to paperwork issues, KFF Health News reported recently. Some observers, including at least one U.S. senator, are blaming Deloitte. No matter who is to blame, the state should not tolerate jerking around new mothers. Unfortunately, it’s part of a larger pattern of incompetency. Recall: • At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state’s unemployment system failed, forcing millions of desperate Floridians to wait months before filing or receiving unemployment claims. For years, state leaders undermined the system so that when it was most needed, the money couldn’t flow. The ineptness further destabilized the wobbly economy. For weeks, the Department of Economic Development couldn’t even tell Gov. Ron DeSantis how many applications had been processed or how many people had received benefits, basic information that some states released daily. DeSantis and others pointed fingers at Deloitte, which provided the software for that system, too. • In 2022, news broke that Florida’s largest Medicaid vendor, Sunshine State Health Plan Inc., hadn’t paid tens of thousands of health care claims for the state’s sickest and neediest children. The failure, blamed on “software glitches,” stranded many families with critically ill children who relied on Medicaid-paid health providers. A mother in Ocala, for instance, said the payment problems temporarily shut down the company that helped look after her disabled 15-year-old son. • This year, chat rooms exploded with parents complaining about not getting eligible claims reimbursed by the state’s school voucher program. Some spent hours on hold with the help center for Step Up for Students, which manages all but a handful of the vouchers. Even when parents got through, they often received confusing and contradictory answers, they said. Remember, the Republicans who control the Legislature love school vouchers, which help Florida parents send their children to private schools or defray homeschooling costs. But even with all that legislative support, the system didn’t work.
Instead of spending their time intimidating insurance rating agencies and abusing condo HOAs -- the DeSantis administration and GOP legislature should spend some time to read the reasonable proposal by this author to address the condo special assessment fee issue in Florida. Basically create a state-backed financing offering no-interest or low-interest loans to qualified associations as well as their unit-owner members. Allow loaning of up to $40 million dollars to condo associations for repairs. This would allow the fees to increase slowly over time rather than one large single special assessment. Furthermore allow condo associations to get actual bids for repairs to vet their figures than have to estimate the totals themselves (which tend to be higher than actual market bids) due to their cautious approach focused on worse case. Florida condo crisis needs to be addressed by lawmakers. Here’s a starting point https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article296553339.html