It is pretty obvious from your post that you have no clue what the situation is here in FL.
You cannot get a mortgage without insurance. Without Citizen's, it would not be possible to purchase a home, unless cash is paid. Everybody, EVERYBODY here in FL knows it is a bad idea for the state to get into the homeowners game. But if there are no insurers writing, then no mortgages sold, no houses are sold (to speak of) and that can be bad for the state (and the citizens), as well.
You write in simplistic terms that I am trying not to be offended by, and I attribute it to your distance from and ignorance of the problem here.
People in FL understand that insurance companies, like any other company, need to make money. We understand that we have had it good in the past, and that we will have to pony up for insurance going forward. We really do understand. We want the competition back. We want to be able to choose from 6 or 8 different companies, instead of being told that only one is available, and that the premiums are the the highest in the state, as mandated by law.
If you are so inclined, come on down, and offer homeowner policies here. I can pretty well guarantee that you will find willing customers.
But you won't do it.
But everything you just said would speak AGAINST what the legislature is doing by forcing insurers to issue policies against their will.
Of course I'm not versed in the details, that's why we have these conversations.
Do you believe that, absent intervention by government, insurance would be impossible to obtain in a state like Florida? Or is your argument that government has messed things up so bad that only further government intervention can help?
I guess the problem on threads like this is there are many participants with different points of view, and it's hard to keep them all separated when responding. We have the anti-state-intervention people, they free-market people, the "insurance companies are evil" people, the "republicans better make government work for us" people, and the "insurance should follow the 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' philosophy.
So, should we required that any insurance company offering insurance in the state of florida to offer it at a price less than when the actuarial costs to them are, forcing them to overcharge others to compensate? Should we require that if they offer car insurance they MUST offer homeowner's insurance even if they don't think that is a profitable business for them?
What burden to we want to put on the insurance business?
And THAT is where you are wrong. If insurors could simply sit down, do their analysis, and decide what rates they have to charge to make money, you would see tons of them in the market. The problem is, they can't charge that for the caps. Some state official has decided the populace has to be "protected" from the "greedy exploiters" and has set a cap.
I would have thought that on FREE REPUBLIC of all places, people would understand that government manipulation of prices ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS leads to shortages. It is done in the name of protecting Bill and Suzy from the evil exploiters, but it always leads simply to shortages. You see it now in Florida in insurance, but there are myriad other examples. The really sad thing is that folks advocate as a solution MORE of what created the problem in the first place. It is like a person irritated that his foot hurts, so in revenge, he chops it off with a machete.