WHY IS BIG INSURANCE SO MOTIVATED TO ELIMINATE NO-FAULT / PIP?

The simple reason that Big Insurance wants PIP to sunset is this: THEY WANT TO MAKE ALL THE RULES. Currently the No-Fault Act has checks and balances against potential abuses by health care providers and insurers alike. Every few years Insurers have tried to make the rules more favorable to insurers. Two years ago, trumpeting the same tune about run away fraud, Big Insurance touched the promised land when they convinced legislators not to extend No-Fault past October 1, 2007. If No-Fault is allowed to sunset, insurers will have turned the maxim “He who has all the gold makes the rules” on its head so that “He (Big Insurance) who makes the rules has the ability to make all the gold”.

For 36 years Florida’s No-Fault system has provided mandatory insurance protection for Floridians injured in automobile related accidents. As a result a large system of services, billings and payments has evolved as more people drive and are injured on Florida’s roads. Insurers know that even if No-Fault expires there will still be a need for similar coverage. But, without the statutorily created coverage and the corresponding consumer protections of the current system Big Insurance can create similar coverage, sell it, administer it, and pay, dispute or deny claims by whatever rules they like.

On August 22, 2007 Representative Bogdanoff unveiled the House Leadership’s vision of No-Fault Reform, what I call the "Bogdanoff PIP Insurer Protection Act of 2007". On Wednesday she defended against my criticism that her bill was not offered in good faith and intended to kill PIP. She was quoted as saying “I worked my butt off to come to this solution…” Although that may be true she doesn’t tell you that the “solution” she created does nothing for the consumer, doctor or hospital and everything for Big Insurance. A partial list of protections in the Bogdanoff PIP Insurer Protection Act are as follows:

1. Decreases benefits for everyone except hospitals.


2. Allows Insurers to create unlimited and undefined requests for documentation from doctors.


3. Removes a requirement that insurers must pay providers for answering the above request.


4. Extends the time for insurers to pay.


5. Takes away doctors right to interest payment for insurer paying late.


6. Takes away the consumers right to know why bills are not being paid timely.

Other proposed changes to the law have nothing to do with fraud. These changes uniformly work to protect Big Insurance. Legislators should reject this insurer protectionism just like they rejected Bogdanoff’s attempt to pass House Bill 7077 in March. That bill, brought to the floor less than 2 months after January’s Insurance Reform , would have allowed insurers unlimited raises to business rates without regulator approval and removed a requirement that storm damage claims be paid within 90 days.

Bottom Line - If Personal Injury Protections sunsets then before the next sunrise look to see State Farm and others offer quasi-PIP policies with countless rules which work against the consumer and enhance their corporate profits.

Darin Lentner, Republican for State Representative, District 91

Political advertisement paid for and approved by Darin Lentner (Republican) for State House of Representatives, District 91.