By ROBERT
TRIGAUX State
Farm proposed a 20 percent rate reduction for its residential homeowners,
an average annual $164 in savings, in the state amid pressure by the
insurance commissioner to press insurers into using strong industry
profits to lower fees. This
is a true event that happened last week. It just did not happen to occur
in It
took place in So,
insurance industry, which is it? Destitute without another rate hike? Or
so flush that stockholders are applauding? It's not as if Floridians are
blind to such two-timing. Perhaps
newly elected Alex Sink, who last week became the state's chief financial
officer, will flex some oversight muscle that apparently had grown flabby
under former CFO Tom Gallagher. Consider
Allstate. Last week it said it was not renewing 106,000 homeowners in That's
the message Allstate consistently sends the public: Mother Nature is mad
and we have to cut back coverage and raise rates to endure her wrath. Here's
a slightly different message Allstate offers to Wall Street and
shareholders: In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Allstate
posted a $1.16-billion profit. Let's listen in on the remarks recently
volunteered by Allstate chief Edward Liddy at a financial services
conference sponsored by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs: "In
just over a decade, Allstate's annual revenues have risen from $23-billion
to $35-billion, and our market cap has increased from just under
$20-billion to about $40-billion ... "At
the same time, we have paid out more than $6.6-billion in dividends at an
average annual increase of just over 12 percent. And our total return to
shareholders has doubled the S&P 500 over that 10-year period." Those
are hardly the words of an insurance executive suffering substantive
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