Ron Klein: “let's get down to the bottom of what we are trying to accomplish here. There is a problem in the United States, in…”

“let's get down to the bottom of what we are trying to accomplish here. There is a problem in the United States, in certain parts of the United States, where the insurance market, unfortunately, cannot deal with a very large disaster. Now, some of our colleagues may not have been exposed to this problem because in their markets they haven't had any large-scale natural disasters, but the more time that passes, the more communities are affected by large-scale natural disasters. The impact of a very large-scale natural disaster is that the insurance industry in these areas retrenches, pulls back, cancels policies or they call them nonrenewal. I have to tell you, one of the most frustrating things after living through some hurricanes in Florida was members of my communities calling me up, as a State Senator, saying, I paid my premium for 15 years straight, and now I am afraid to make a claim because I have had some damage, never made a claim before, but I am afraid to make a claim because the insurance company is going to cancel me. Something is wrong with the market, free market, as we like to think of it, if that is happening. People want to know the bargain is if I have paid my premium my insurance company is going be there and there is some stability behind it. What we have tried to do is recognize that in some cases, not many, but in some cases, and the very high scale of large-scale natural disasters, there is some reaction that has to be provided.”