About 30 health insurance agents and brokers in Florida sent letters to the state insurance commissioner’s office, urging him to work harder to free their commissions from the administrative portion of the new medical loss ratios included in health reform.

Florida’s insurance commissioner has approved rate hikes averaging 18.8% for homeowners who are covered by State Farm.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty approved multiple rate hikes for Citizens Property Insurance, a major coastal property insurer in the state.

Conseco Life Insurance Co. agreed to establish a $10 million fund and pay a $1 million “monetary assessment” to settle a multi-state complaint regarding its handling of policy increases for its Lifetrend product in 2008.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the state’s property insurance bill that would have expedited rate filings for property-casualty insurers, saying it was not in consumers’ best interests.

In the movie “Little Miss Sunshine,” Olive Hoover was a little girl with a dream but burdened with a totally dysfunctional family. Florida reminds me of Olive, and state government is its dysfunctional family. Florida dreams of cheap property insurance, and state government swears it can get her there. Unfortunately, dreams and reality clashed in the Sunshine State and practically wrecked the insurance market. This week, the parade got rained on again.

A Florida senator is repeating his call for the ousting of the state’s insurance commissioner, calling his behavior “reprehensible” and saying he is no longer trustworthy.

Nearly 30,000 policies provided through Florida-based Magnolia Insurance are set for cancellation on the heels of the company going into receivership.

Already threatened with a veto by Gov. Charlie Crist, Florida lawmakers appear unlikely to win a victory to allow Florida property insurers to raise rates through unregulated policies.

An executive at a Gainesville, Fla.-based insurer must repay his firm $600,000 and step down after an affiliate transaction between two businesses he owns.