Opinion, Palm Beach Business.com

Hillary, John and the federal gas-tax holiday

With premium already over $4 and regular rapidly approaching, what better way to help consumers than to declare a holiday on the 18-cents-a-gallon federal tax, as proposed by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain? READ MORE.

Proposition One just doesn't deliver

We oppose Proposition One. It’s not that we don’t believe property tax reform isn’t needed. It is. Desperately.

The problem is that Prop One doesn’t deliver what’s really needed. READ MORE.

McCarty versus Allstate

We believe Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty made the right call when he suspended the Allstate Cos. ability to write new business in the state. READ MORE.

Crist's property tax cut victory

We will predict right now that voters will approve the property tax cut package that the Legislature passed Monday.

We will also predict about a year from now that those same voters will be disappointed when they see how little they save on their tax bills as a result.

The package includes doubling the $25,000 homestead exemption, portability for Save Our Homes and caps on assessment increases for commercial property and second homes. It does little, however, to resolve the extreme inequity in the current tax system. Voters will be asked to approve the changes during a special election on Jan. 29.

The irony is that the Legislature’s original plan, which would have created much larger homestead exemptions, would have produced more significant savings for many homeowners, especially those who bought their homes in recent years.

But it also would have drawn significant organized opposition and likely would not have gotten the 60 percent approval from voters needed to become law.

For now, at least, it’s a political victory for Gov. Charlie Crist. We wonder if it will be seen that way a year from now.

PIP insurance worth keeping

There was a bit of good news coming out of Tallahassee last week. After nearly a two-year battle, the Legislature finally extended mandatory Personal Injury Protection auto insurance law.

That law requires car owners to carry a minimum of $10,000 of insurance to cover the medical costs that stem from car accident. It expired Oct. 1, but a bill passed Friday puts it back into effect on Jan. 1.

Insurers, especially giant State Farm, have argued that PIP should be eliminated because of the huge amount of fraud associated with it, especially in South Florida, where ripping off carriers by filing bogus medical claims has become a cottage industry. For years, lawmakers have fought back by toughening the law and giving the Office of Insurance Regulation more money and more people to investigate insurance fraud.

We’re sympathetic to the argument. But eliminating PIP just because of the scum that abuse it is wrong. We can’t let crooks set public policy.

In the end, PIP is worth keeping because it does do what it is supposed to do. It does cut down on the number of lawsuits that stem from minor auto accidents, and it does ensure that those who are injured in those accidents get the medical care they need. We applaud those who fought hard to keep it, especially Gov. Charlie Crist. Sen. Bill Posey and Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff.

Florida property insurance woes need a radical solution

State Farm is dropping 50,000 homeowners policies. Nationwide is cutting 39,000. More insurers than not have made filings with the Office of Insurance Regulations wanting to raise rates rather than reduce rates. And those that are cutting rates, are cutting less deeply than anticipated.

By any measure, the package of insurance reform measures that lawmakers enacted back in January with an eye toward stabilizing the insurance market and reducing the cost of insurance has failed miserably. READ MORE.