Fla. Condo, Home Associations Press Politicians Over Insurance Crisis

As Floridians prepare to go to the polls in November, nine out of every ten of the state’s property owners living in condos, homeowner and other community associations say Florida’s elected officials are doing too little to stop the sharp rise in storm-related insurance costs in their communities.

A new poll of residential property owners in Florida community associations conducted online from Sept. 22 through Oct. 1 found that fully 87 percent of respondents said they would be liable for increases in storm-related insurance costs in their communities this year. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) also said they want more government regulation of the private insurance industry and 61 percent want the state to operate as an alternative to private insurers.

A total of 702 community association property owners responded to the poll in a representative sampling of sentiment over the insurance crisis in Florida’s nearly 68,000 condo, co-op, mobile home, timeshare and homeowner associations statewide. The survey was conducted by the 4,000 member Community Association Leadership Lobby (CALL), a not-for-profit advocacy group established in 2003 by the law firm Becker & Poliakoff to represent common-interest ownership communities.

Nearly half of the survey’s respondents (48.2 percent) said they cannot afford to pay the amounts being required of them to cover their share of their community’s storm-related insurance costs, while more than two-thirds (68.3 percent) said the increases are leading them or their neighbors to consider selling their property and leaving the state altogether.

“In the run-up to the Nov. 7 elections, Florida politicians must take notice of this powerful voting block of millions of Floridians living in condos, co-ops, HOAs, mobile home and other associations,” said Donna D. Berger, CALL executive director and a community association attorney. “These Floridians are understandably very upset and they are tired of listening to excuses from elected
officials who say nothing can be done about this outrageous increase in storm-related insurance costs.”

“Governor Bush and other elected officials in Tallahassee should spend less time listening to the insurance industry and more time listening to Florida’s citizens, who are demanding that public policy-makers act decisively to control rising insurance costs for homeowners statewide,” said Kenneth S. Direktor, another community association attorney with Becker & Poliakoff, who testified Oct. 4 in before the Governor’s Insurance Reform Committee in Tallahassee.

“Unfortunately, the Insurance Reform Committee appears to be in search of solutions that will accommodate the insurance industry and seems to accept the industry claim that insurance premiums are too low, a concept that is very difficult to explain to community associations and homeowners whose rates have skyrocketed.”

Source: Community Association Leadership Lobby
www.callbp.com.