Seen on the newswires:
A Florida court Wednesday reaffirmed the state’s ban on Allstate Corp. issuing new insurance policies in the state and denied the insurer a rehearing in the case.
Florida’s insurance commissioner said the First District Court of Appeal lifted a stay on the suspension of the license that had been in effect while Allstate appealed the state regulator’s actions.
“As a result, the suspension now is back in effect,” the office of Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said in a statement.
So, have any Allstate agents in Florida been treated for whiplash, arising from all this on-again/off-again teeter-tottering in the Allstate-Florida mutual lovefest?
You may recall that this all got started back in January, when the Florida OIR sought to give Allstate an extra-thorough proctology exam over Allstate’s cat management philosophy, including a request for mountains of documentation. The commissioner believes that Allstate is hiding something from the regulators’ gloved hands…and suspensions and legal squabbles have ensued.
While I can empathize with Allstate’s paranoia here…I was brought up to believe that sometimes you just have to relax and do what is demanded by the regulators, even when it seems silly or persecuting, if you want to do business in the the regulators’ jurisdiction.
Of course, you do have to wonder if the prospects in other lines of business really is worth this level of discomfort.