affordable car insurance in hialeah florida news

21.05.12

A promising effort to repair the state’s broken Personal-Injury Protection system has run into last-minute wrangling as the Legislature prepares to adjourn. This threatens to doom a desperately needed repair of auto insurance for Florida’s consumers.

Florida is one of the worst places for PIP fraud. It is home to four of the 10 worst cities in the nation for this racket: Tampa, Orlando, Miami and Hialeah.

The fraud consists of phony claims involving the $10,000 of medical coverage available to every driver under the state’s mandatory PIP law, sometimes referred to as Florida’s no-fault law.

Staged accidents that involve phony clinics and fake claims allow organized crime to scam millions of dollars every year. That hurts everyone. Consider a family of two drivers earning $40,000 a year. The average premium for that Miami family would be $1,861 — an unsustainable 13 percent of their income.

A study led by the state’s Insurance Consumer Advocate found that State Farm Mutual had increased its PIP rates by 50 percent since 2009, GEICO by 77 percent, and Progressive by 63 percent. Ouch!

Source: MiamiHerald.com