Insurance Journal is carrying a story on efforts by Florida congressmen to get some movement on the creation of a federal cat fund, as well as the political hurdles that need to be crossed.
There is a comment in the story that caught my eye:
While [Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)] has doubts about a national catastrophe fund coming out of Washington, he says there are other ways the federal government can help. He’s proposing tax free catastrophe accounts that property owners can use to pay insurance deductibles after a loss.
It’s not a bad idea. However, I still have my usual concerns about there being too many alphabet-soup tax-advantaged savings accounts, and citizens of limited or moderate means not having the resources to fully take advantage of all of them…or the financial savvy to know how to optimize their participation.
Thus, I re-mention an old idea of mine: let’s have ONE multi-purpose tax-advantaged account, from which withdrawals can be made to help fund retirement, disability, unemployment, disaster recovery, health expenses, downpayments on a first house, etc., etc., etc. Americans can then save what they can, without having to worry about the proportions required for different purposes, some of which might never happen.