Wednesday, June 24, 2009, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist rejected a bill that would allow insurers to charge whatever fee they wanted for property insurance! The reason? He declared that the bill lacked enough consumer protection.

This rejection will ensure that State Farm Florida will indeed leave the Florida property insurance market. Don’t get excited just yet…State Farm may not drop any policies for a year and half, according to the Office of Insurance Regulation. The term “drop” would mean “renew”. According to State Farm, they intend to drop their 900,000 property insurance clients over a two year period and that they will give their policyholders a 180 day notice before their coverage ends.

The process will take some time if indeed State Farm does follow through with their threats, however, according to Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, “I think State Farm was running a bluff when it did what it did; I think the insurance commissioner was running a bluff when he did what he did,” Bennett said. “I think they both lost. But I also think the Florida market is too large for them to walk away. … These are smart people; I don’t think they will leave the state of Florida entirely.”