I am hearing that Governor Crist has extended the freeze that he signed several months ago that prevents Citizens Property Insurance (the so-called, insurer of last resort in Florida) from raising the rates it charges their customers for homeowner coverage. Instead of doing this by executive order, he accomplished it by signing a bill into law. The freeze on Citizen's rates will remain in effect until the end of 2008.

This bill also forbids large national companies from forming companies just within the state of Florida, and then claiming they are losing money since they are not spreading the risk over ALL of its customers in all 50 states, or wherever it does business outside of Florida. In the past when a hurricane hit Florida, they reported horrible losses and asked for huge rate increases, even though everywhere else in the country they were raking in the dough. No more of that.

The bill will also require that before national companies ask for a rate increase, they must factor in all the money they are making nationwide.