Keep consumers first under new insurance chief
After 12 years of navigating the rough regulatory and political waters under three governors, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty is resigning. His last day is May 2.
And unless Gov. Rick Scott intends to break type and put consumers ahead of insurers, any resident who owns a car or home may be all the worse for McCarty’s decision.
As for McCarty himself, smart money is on him landing as head of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. All he would says in his politically correct statement issued Tuesday, was that he is stepping down as the state’s first and only Director of the Office of Insurance Regulation to pursue an “opportunity that is on the horizon.”
Either way, we wish him well. Because while McCarty was by no means perfect — often clashing with legislators and his bosses — he was arguably the best advocate Florida insurance consumers could hope for in a shaky market that stayed in the headlines.
Scott will name a potential replacement and, if he gets agreement from Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, then will take the nomination to the state Cabinet for approval.
Atwater, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and even Attorney General Pam Bondi must hold the line on replacing McCarty with a regulator who would be a strong champion for the consumer.
For the past year, Scott has made no secret that he’s wanted new blood in that job. Even after McCarty helped him steer automobile insurance reform through the Florida Legislature in 2012, Scott called for the Cabinet to begin possibly removing McCarty
To that end, Scott’s office didn’t waste many words on McCarty’s departure. “We appreciate his service to the state, and we wish him the best of luck in his next endeavor,” Scott’s spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said in a statement.
As the Post’s Charles Elmore reported, in October, McCarty wondered aloud whether it was time to end the state’s no-fault Personal Injury Protection car insurance system, which Scott has supported keeping, with reforms to curb fraud and high costs. Scott lobbied for a 2012 PIP bill that many in the industry supported, and which passed two days after a Miami auto insurer contributed $100,000 to Scott’s Let’s Get to Work political action committee.
“What do you do?” McCarty said at an industry conference in Orlando. “Here’s an idea. I’m just throwing it out there for discussion. Let’s just repeal PIP and do nothing.”
Still, later in October, McCarty said he wasn’t going anywhere, but he’d listen if the offer was right.
But Lisa Miller, who worked with McCarty as an insurance regulator, told News Service of Florida: “I think the events of this past year have given him the realization that his work is done here. He can move on and leave Florida with his head held high.”
McCarty has had some legitimate criticisms leveled at him. In the wake of Florida’s historic 2004 and 2005 storm seasons, he allowed property insurance rates to rise too much. He also allowed some financially shaky and inexperienced start-up property insurers to take hundreds of thousands of policies out of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Co. And he’s been justly criticized by legislators and Cabinet members for a lack of transparency.
But most industry watchers give McCarty props for protecting consumers. For example, he’s ushered in reforms for auto, medical malpractice, health and worker’s compensation insurance. In 2000, he won a $2.55 million out of court settlement from Bankers Insurance Co. of St. Petersburg, which had tapped his phone and investigated his personal life over what it claimed where unfavorable regulatory actions. And in 2013, he made sure that Florida Blue executives and board members did not unduly profit from a controversial reorganization of the giant health insurer.
“Commissioner McCarty not only stood up for the consumer, he had an incredible grasp of the complexity of insurance in all its forms,” Pasco County Tax Collector Mike Fasano, a former state lawmaker who worked on insurance issues, said. “He understood the grave impact a single word change in statute could have for or against the consumer. His voice of warning or support could change the tide for a piece of legislation. ... He is a class act whose shoes will surely be hard to fill.”
For our sake, we should at least try.