Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Don Brown was cited in a Dec. 13 editorial in the Wall Street Journal about legislative efforts to reform the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
The WSJ notes that efforts to reform the state-run entities require political bravery, given that “no one hates higher insurance costs than Floridians, who have the ‘tendency,’ as former representative Don Brown quips, to ‘build in very dangerous places and expect someone else to pay the bill.’”
(Gov. Rick) Scott and his allies may get little immediate political benefit from backing such forward-thinking reforms. If anything, it’s a political negative to promote higher insurance costs without the cover of a big natural disaster to justify them, which is why Representatives like New Port Richey’s Mike Fasano have so vociferously blocked past reform efforts. To which the response should be: Political leaders worth the name try to prevent problems before they become crises.
