The Florida Senate is following through on promised to beef up
consumer's voice in insurance matters, with a bill to give greater legal
authority to the Office of Insurance Consumer Advocate.

But it's not happening on the other side of the Legislature.

"There's a hiccup in the House," agreed Bob Milligan, CFO Alex Sink's
newly appointed insurance consumer advocate.

The former state comptroller expresses some frustration in getting
the House to take up Sink's request, which includes allowing the
advocate to subpoena insurance company records and call witnesses, as
well as to investigate industry business practices.

But he's not throwing in the towel.

"I'm satisfied we'll get to where we need to be," Milligan says.

There are still no checks in the mail, but Florida homeowners
continue to get promises of insurance rate cuts.

Very detailed promises.

At www.floir.com/PresumedFactor/Report2.pdf, the Office of Insurance
Regulation has gone to the trouble of listing the coming reductions --
by county -- for each insurance company it approves.

Available so far are the county-by-county reductions for the first 11
insurers out of the box.

Even in the same location, there's a lot of variation. United Fire
and Casualty, for instance, has a 2.8 percent reduction in Brevard
County. Great Northern Insurance is lowering Brevard rates 41 percent.

Too bad that Great Northern insures only 342 homes in Florida.

Our own analysis shows the average rate cut sought by the insurance
industry is under 11 percent, less than half the reduction regulators
said they expected.

The reductions don't go into effect until June, so policyholders
renewing now are left out. And they don't stop an insurer from
dropping you altogether -- the bad news currently being delivered to
more than 6,000 Brevard County customers of Allstate Floridian.

Rate rollbacks and state-backed hurricane coverage won't bring
competition back to Florida's home insurance market if consumers are
still in the dark about who charges what.
That's the thought at the Office of Insurance Regulation, which is
quietly hammering away at a new system that will let Floridians look up
home insurance rates, and shop between companies. The agency today
sought legislative budget authority for $1.15 million to pay a
contractor working on the computer system.
Right now the only way to compare insurance rates is to read rate
filings, and even then comparisons are available at only two price
ranges -- homes worth $75,000 and $150,000.
"The idea is to make it a richer system," said deputy insurance
commissioner David Foy.