Thanks to insurance ‘reform,’ pray you never have a sinkhole…
By Scott Maxwell – Taking Names.
OK, so no one ever wants to deal with a sinkhole. One day your house is fine. The next, it’s sinking into the ground, like a scene from “Poltergeist.” Why? Because as journalist Steve Lemongello recently reported in this piece — “Sinkhole or no sinkhole? Residents fight 6-year battle as law shifts around them” — it’s getting harder in this state to get insurance to do its job.
Is that because insurance companies are trying to hose you? Sure. Sometimes.
But it’s also because the people you elected are passing laws to hose you as well — to make the hosing systemic.
For sinkholes, it happened a few years back. Insurers claimed that sinkhole fraud was skyrocketing. And it probably was. But instead of simply targeting the fraudsters, they wanted to make it harder on everyone to file legitimate claims. And legislators happily agreed. We saw the something with car-insurance “reform.” Insurers claimed fraud was on the rise … and legislators responded by making it tougher on everyone to file claims. (Now, for instance, accident victims have to seek treatment within 14 days — whether they need it or not — if they ever hope to make a claim.)
The bottom line is that, most any time insurers start complaining about fraud and legislators start talking about “reform,” there’s a good chance Florida families will lose out … as the family in that sinkhole story is already finding out.
Pray you never have a sinkhole
