R.J. Lehmann on hurricane risk in Florida

Christian Science Monitor – ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann was quoted by the Christian Science Monitor in a story about the risk of hurricanes in Florida and what it means for the state’s insurance market. You can read full story here.

“We were already in crisis before this storm, and we will certainly be in full collapse after this storm,” says Ray Lehmann, editor-in-chief of International Center for Law & Economics. “If you look at the history of Florida, going all the way back to [the founding of] St. Augustine, it exists as a long series of speculative real estate bubbles. At some point the gravy train is going to stop. We’re getting there.”

…“We have thinly capitalized, very undiversified domestic insurers, six of whom have been declared insolvent in the last year and two dozen more that stand ready to be downgraded” by a rating agency, says Mr. Lehmann, in Tampa.

…“There is very little political will to do the things that need to be done,” says Mr. Lehmann. “I’m sure we will start hearing calls that we need a federal catastrophe fund” to shore up insurers, “but the major problem with that is that it benefits no other state.”