House Majority Whip Ellyn Bogdanoff likes CFO Alex Sink's proposal to
let the Florida Cabinet set the terms and rates of hurricane protection
the state sells the insurance industry.

In fact, Bogdanoff helped originate it.

But the current calendar of blended special sessions doesn't leave
the House leader enough time to make her case to the rest of the
Legislature. Bogdanoff says she would need at least two weeks' down time
to sell fellow legislators on the merits of giving up the steering wheel
and allowing the Cabinet to drive a more-nimble Florida Hurricane
Catastrophe Fund.

If that's the case, Florida's fallback position is going through a
second hurricane season with the full $28 billion Cat Fund created by
the Legislature in January 2007 -- selling what for Sink is a very
uncomfortable amount of insurance at a time when private market
reinsurance rates are beginning to drop.

Bogdanoff's hope -- that those prices go down so low that private
insurers simply pass by the exposed state fund, and do their reinsurance
shopping in Bermuda.

"OIR's insistence on such a broad scope for its subpoenas can only be
for purposes of punishing Petitioners for seeking a rate increase,"
attorney Harry Thomas writes in a petition asking a Leon County Circuit
Judge to limit the reach of investigators.

The Office of Insurance Regulation has demanded extensive amounts of
records from at least three companies -- State Farm Florida, Cincinnati
and Auto-Owners Insurance. It seeks copies of their correspondence with
rating agencies, trade organizations and catastrophe modeling firms.

Cincinnati says the subpoenas are so broad it would have to turn over
copies of trade magazines, McDonald's receipts and invoices for soup as
well. It blames "frustrated politicians" and "apparent political
motivations" for an "obvious attempt to divert public attention and
publicity away from OIR and the Governor's representations" of promised
rate cuts.

Gov. Charlie Crist referred to the investigation repeatedly at a
September Cabinet meeting, vowing to uncover whether Florida insurers
have conspired to thwart rate cuts. Some three dozen insurers seek to
raise rates instead. Cincinnati has filed for a 37.5 percent increase.

To date, court files show, Cincinnati has turned over 4,400 pages of
records in three cardboard boxes. Regulators say Cincinnati is
withholding material, sometimes not even identifying what it won't
release. However, two of the internal documents withheld so far go to
the heart of the investigation -- notes show they address Cincinnati's
legal strategies in Florida.