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" A recent report in the St. Petersburg Times says state-run Citizens Property Insurance has a $432 billion exposure to risk.<br /><br />At the same time, it says Gov. Charlie Crist's legislation will cost the company, now the largest insurance provider in the state, $620 million this year, and that Citizens is making approximately $200 million a month.<br /><br />A.M. Best, a full-service credit rating organization dedicated to serving the financial services industries, including the banking and insurance sectors, says Crist's measures have left the state exposed.<br /><br />Attorney General Bill McCollum has been advising Crist, a former attorney general, on the insurance situation.<br /><br />\"A.M. Best views the recent legislative changes as weakening the business profile of companies with significant concentration of Florida business,\" a release from the company says. \"In addition, the prospective capitalization of property insurance writers is weakened, as they carry the burden of potentially unrecoverable reinsurance in the event of a major catastrophic event.\" <br /><br />Crist and the state Legislature successfully passed measures earlier this year that prevented insurance companies from dropping policyholders until after this year's hurricane season.<br /><br />McCollum told LegalNewsline that a long-term solution is needed for the issue of reinsurance. <br /><br />\"I was in Congress for many years and authored a catastrophe insurance bill back after Hurricane Andrew,\" he said. \"There appears to be a long-term insurance crisis, and there needs to be a solution that addresses reinsurance.\"<br /><br />A catastrophe fund that helps pay for events that only occur \"once in a hundred years,\" is what McCollum desires. That timetable, though, has been a problem. Insurers in Florida want to base their premiums on weather patterns of the previous five years (which include the hectic seasons of 2004-05), while the state government feels they should be based on the last 100 years.<br /><br />Citizens Property Insurance is the largest insurer in the state. Without being able to raise premiums (there is also a freeze on increasing premiums), some feel private businesses will not be able to compete with Citizens.<br /><br />Private insurers may draw from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund -- reinsurance provided by taxpayers.<br /><br />\"Insurers will not be willing to insure catastrophic events unless there is some reinsurance possibility,\" McCollum said.<br /><br />"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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