Opinion

Too soon

Opinion of the, News-Press of Fort
Published: February 27, 2013

Florida Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford are concerned the changes the state made to auto insurance personal injury protection are not working.

There is, however, no way to accurately document the effectiveness of a law that went into effect Jan. 1.

The goals of the PIP changes were controlling fraud and giving insurers the ability to drop their premiums to customers. What can be documented is the fraud. Although traffic crashes have decreased since 2006, the number of PIP claims jumped 28 percent between 2008 and 2010, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

At the same time, PIP benefits paid by insurers skyrocketed 70 percent, to $2.37 billion from $1.43 billion.

At the center of the new law is the requirement that people involved in a traffic crash seek medical attention within 14 days. The intent is to keep people from later developing mysterious injuries and filing false claims.

There were plenty of reports last year that suggested it could take at least a year for the PIP overhaul to have impact and determine if they were actually controlling fraud and that insurance companies were living up to their end of the bargain and dropping rates.

Last year, eight of the 10 of the largest insurers in the state filed plans to drop their PIP premiums anywhere from 5 to 10 percent.

Gaetz said he voted for the changes last year in exchange for the insurance companies dropping rates.

One insurance executive said the median rate has stayed about the same since the legislation was enacted.

Give the laws more time, but legislators and consumers should hold their insurance companies accountable for delivering on their promises of dropping rates.