PIP

Seen in an Orlando Sentinel blog:

The Florida Legislature passed a reform of the auto insurance mandate Friday that will limit how much insurers pay for specific medical treatments, but otherwise keep in place the requirement that died Monday requiring motorists to purchase $10,000 policies for injuries to themselves and passengers regardless of fault.

For drivers, the confusion may continue for awhile.

The reform lawmakers sent to Gov. Charlie Crist Friday takes effect Jan. 1. Until then, anyone who has personal injury protection insurance included in their auto policy will keep it.

Anyone who doesn?t have PIP won?t have to buy it until January.

And thus, one three-ring circus is brought to resolution, by settling for almost the status quo.

It’s a shame that they couldn’t have decided to almost maintain that status quo before the lapse of the law’s predecessor.

Seen in the Orlando Sun-Sentinel:

Florida’s no-fault insurance law survived its first vote during a special legislative session Wednesday, with two more panels to weigh in today on whether to revive mandatory personal-injury protection automobile coverage for the state’s drivers.

Drivers should take note of a change that could cause confusion. PIP, as it’s known, would die for four months until the revamped system takes effect Feb. 15, under a new deal between House and Senate negotiators.

The result likely would be any accident between now and then would be settled by lawsuits to determine who was to blame.

The House Insurance Committee on Wednesday endorsed bringing back PIP with a few changes and beefed-up anti-fraud measures by an 11-1 margin.

Apparently the outlook of this proposal is far less certain in the Florida Senate , with the article quoting a source putting the bill’s chances at 50/50.

Meanwhile, I’m beginning to see a flaw with one of my fundamental political beliefs.

You see, I’ve a fan of deadlock in legislative bodies, arising when no political party has sufficient political power to overcome the other party, thereby (in theory at least) preventing legislative folks from causing too much mischief that would affect ordinary folks.

Unfortunately, that theory doesn’t preclude the possibility that a legislative body could have a collective will to do “something”, but insufficient agreement on the details of what “something” is. Such a situation creates additional wasteful and stressful chaos, as seems to be the case in Florida when discussing PIP.

Via a blog post at the Orlando Sentinel, I found this announcement from Tallahassee:

Governor Charlie Crist today expanded the call for the Special Session beginning October 3, 2007, to include Florida’s Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law, known as personal injury protection or PIP. The session was originally called by the Legislature on September 28, 2007, to focus on the 2007-08 budget.

“Personal injury protection insurance is very important to the people of Florida, and $10,000 in coverage provides a minimum safeguard,” said Governor Crist. “I am encouraging members of the House and Senate to reach consensus and ensure the continuation of this important consumer protection.”

It should be noted that mandatory PIP and certain other aspects of Florida’s mandatory insurance law lapsed yesterday…and that it’s rumored that a compromise has been struck among legiscritters, the details of which will become known during the session.