Help residents harden homes
Floridians need rate relief now, but they also need to be encouraged to make their homes stronger and better able to withstand hurricane winds. That means a true statewide building code, incentives for adding storm shutters and other improvements, and clear reductions in premiums for homeowners' investments...Cutting premiums may provide immediate relief, but one of the long-term answers to the property insurance crisis is to ensure Florida homes are better able to withstand hurricane-force winds.

Legislators only need to look at the overwhelming interest by homeowners in a new state program to inspect and harden houses to see Floridians are desperate for help to help themselves. My Safe Florida Home, created by the Legislature last year to offer free home inspections, has conducted some 14,000 inspections and has another 50,000 homeowners on a waiting list. The program also is supposed to offer matching grants of up to $5,000 for stronger garage doors or other improvements, although no grants have been awarded yet. Lawmakers would spend another $100-million in federal money to complement My Safe Florida Home, which would be a prudent investment.

Several proposals this week also would require insurers to offer clear, definable premium discounts to homeowners who make their homes stronger and better able to withstand hurricane force winds. Homeowners who make these responsible investments should know up front what it will be worth to their insurer, and there should not be such wide discrepancies in discounts among insurers for similar improvements to similar homes on the same street. Plans to require uniform inspection forms for mitigation efforts and to create a state study commission to make further recommendations within the next two months are steps in the right direction.

Another smart move embraced by both the House and Senate is to eliminate the so-called "Panhandle exemption," which allows portions of North Florida to escape the tougher building codes required elsewhere in the state. Such efforts have been derailed in the past, but the property insurance crisis has changed the tenor of the debate in Tallahassee. Ending the exemption also could have a ripple effect across the state, because reinsurers have cited that exemption as one reason for the high rates they charge insurers on Florida policies.

Cutting premiums may provide immediate relief, but one of the long-term answers to the property insurance crisis is to ensure Florida homes are better able to withstand hurricane-force winds.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/17/Opinion/Help_residents_harden.shtml