Florida: State Farm Blames Sinkholes for 28% Rate Hike Request
February 17th, 2011[???]
Via: Tampa Bay Online:
Citing sinkhole losses and higher operating expenses, State Farm Florida asked state regulators today for a 28 percent premium increase on its homeowners policies.
Sinkhole claims, which are approaching $2 billion over the past five years in Florida, have exploded at a great cost to the insurance industry.
aw yeah, sinkholes. i haven’t been back to florida in ten years but i lived there for 45 years. i have to wonder how much worse off the ecology is there. sinkholes were a problem, but by and large they weren’t generally large holes. but when they were large, for all their suddenness it could be serious.
the thing about south florida is that it’s all old coral rock. the water aquifer beneath is virtually a subterranean river, polluted with all kinds of crap. avgas and jet fuel from leaking airport tanks. and benzene (from god knows where) according to one report i read.
when they built the city of Coral Gables in the early 20th century, they built scads of fancy coral rock city entrances and neighborhood ‘fences’ (short wide stubby things good for a kid to nap on) out of coral rock taken from a pit in the middle of the city. they eventually turned that pit into a massive and beautiful swimming pool.
http://zuma.vip.warped.com/Coral_Gables_Venetian_Pool_1920s.jpg
http://zuma.livejournal.com/143994.html
sinkholes appeared everywhere all the time. we had one in our backyard. filling them in just made them worse it seemed; the more dirt and stuff you put in the more would give beneath. so we ended up just putting a board atop it. big ones, like car size were rare, but did happen on rare occasion.
i don’t know if the pollution in the ground contributed or not, but i know the pollution got worse.
and then there is the canals. the army corps of engineers drained south florida in the early 20th century and made a series of canals. now they’re wanting to reverse that project as it turned out badly decades later. i don’t know what became of the new project to reverse all that.
sinkholes aren’t just limited to south florida but central florida as well. geologically, it’s an interesting area in general. there’s lots of underwater caves throughout florida. dangerous to scuba dive in but people do. the stuff that can be found suggest florida’s coast line had dramatically contracted throughout millenia. confusingly, there’s much to suggest it had once been underwater. (like all the dang coral rock for one thing.)
sinkholes were always a factor. nothing new. i can’t comment on whatever’s happened in the insurance biz there, but if there *is* a new development to suddenly impact the insurance biz, i wouldn’t be surprised. lowered water table for one thing. the accumulated effect of solvents in the ground water itself may be another. anything the insurance biz can exploit, they will, i don’t doubt.
Sinkholes are no better or worse than they have been in the past. I’ve been down here for 30 years and every year there are 2 or 3 stories of new holes opening somewhere within 30 miles of the I-4 corridor. The I-4 corridor is roughly 120 miles long by 60 miles tall, so it is a very large area. Last year about this time there was a sudden uptick that lasted around 3 or 4 weeks in the Plant City area, but things quickly calmed back down when the strawberry growers quit pumping so much water.
What this is; is last year State Farm lost a battle with the state to boost insurance rates 45%. The state told them to buzz off if they were going to insist on sodomizing the citizens so severely, It was a knockdown drag-out fight and lasted over a year, and scared the hell out of the 1 million with State Farm insurance. In the end State Farm settled for a 20% rate increase. This looks and smells like they want their other 25%, sinkholes are just their newest scary sounding excuse to rape the citizens.
Since we elected a known felon (a corporate medicare fraudster) to be Governor, I suppose they will get it. My fellow citizens really are a stupid pack and deserve what they get. But that is another story…