- Via the Miami Herald: DeSantis has hammered Biden on rising prices. Now Florida is an inflation hotspot.
- Via CBS News reports AAA pulls back from offering insurance in Florida, following Farmers.
The company is the fourth insurer over the last year say it is backing away from insuring Floridians, a sign extreme weather linked to climate change is destabilizing the insurance market. On Tuesday, Farmers Insurance said it will no longer offer coverage in the state, affecting roughly 100,000 customers.
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Bankers Insurance and Lexington Insurance, a subsidiary of AIG, left Florida last year, saying recent natural disasters have made it too expensive to insure residents. Hurricanes Ian and Nicole devastated Florida in 2022, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing a total about about 150 people.
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Already, homeowners in the state pay about three times as much for insurance coverage as the national average, and rates this year are expected to soar about 40%.
Insurance companies are leaving Florida even as lawmakers in December passed legislation aimed at stabilizing the market. Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that, among other things, creates a $1 billion reinsurance fund and puts disincentives in place to prevent frivolous lawsuits. The law takes effect in October.
So, maybe climate change is just wokeism after all?
- And then there’s this from the Tampa Bay Times: Veterans quit DeSantis’ Florida State Guard over militialike training.
When DeSantis announced in 2021 that he wanted to revive the long-dormant State Guard, he vowed it would help Floridians during emergencies. But in the year since its launch, key personnel and a defined mission remain elusive. The state is looking for the program’s third leader in eight months. According to records reviewed by the Times/Herald and interviews with program volunteers, a number of recruits quit after the first training class last month because they feared it was becoming too militaristic.
Weeks into that inaugural June training, one volunteer, a disabled retired Marine Corps captain, called the local sheriff’s office to report he was battered by Florida National Guard instructors when they forcibly shoved him into a van after he questioned the program and its leadership.
