Citizens flaunts a $1.1 billion surplus

Marie Antoinette is remembered for licking icing off her fingers as France fell apart in the late 1700s, and Nero is credited with playing the flute while Rome burned in AD 66.

How will the Florida Supreme Court Justices be remembered as the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Ivan approaches?

Though the court is in the midst of deciding the future for hundreds of Northwest Florida families whose homes were totally destroyed and their insurance companies have refused to pay, the court is in the middle of a six-week recess.

In other words, the court is on vacation as lives hang in the balance.

The Florida Supreme Court will return August 20, and regular opinions will not be released before August 30. How will they rule on the Cox v. Florida Farm Bureau lawsuit? Reports of nearly 500 Northwest Florida families in litigation with the insurance companies may seem small on a statewide level, and the political pressure is certain to be hot upon the justices. If the court upholds the Mierzwa decision and declares that the Value Policy Law (VPL) applies, insurance companies will be required to pay the value of the wind policies on each destroyed home, and likely attorney's fees, interest and other fees. An amount which could easily exceed $400 million.

Many attorneys thought the Supreme Court would overwhelmingly support Florida statutes and the first District Court which ruled that Florida was a valued policy law state. But rumors buzz that the arguments before the court, and the justice's comments, do not bode well for property owners who lost their homes, their belongings in the wake of Hurricane Ivan.

Adding insult to injury, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation announced this month that they had built a much stronger financial foundation, and had amassed a total surplus of $1.1 billion for 2006. Many other insurance companies have posted enormous surpluses, and even Kevin McCarty, Florida Insurance Commissioner, has called out private insurers. Though recent legislation makes the public more responsible for storm claims, the companies were supposed to cut premiums, not keep the savings for themselves.

Does it scare you that the companies seem to be in charge and taking advantage? It should. Now consider that so many of your neighbors are still unpaid from a hurricane that ravaged our area nearly three years ago. I'm not an attorney,but even by my novice reading the law seems clear. I believe that if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, it flies in the face of a clear reading of a statute that leaves little room for interpretation. If a covered peril is involved in the total loss of a property, the insurer must pay.

I hope the court will return from vacation with a clear mind and prove me right.