Kill-PIP bill could save Florida drivers $81 per car on insurance

Dec. 14--A state legislator said Tuesday he has filed legislation to end Florida's no-fault car insurance system after a study found it could save drivers $81 per car, or close to a $1 billion a year.

The bill would repeal the state's requirement that drivers buy Personal Injury Protection coverage by 2020, dropping the curtain on the system in place since the 1970s.

"Absolutely it's one the strongest arguments we have that we can save Floridians potentially $1 billion going forward," State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, told The Palm Beach Post.

An actuarial study released in September found that dropping the PIP requirement would roll back annual premiums by hundreds of millions of dollars, even after expected increases in other parts of the bill, such as bodily-injury liability premiums.

Floridians pay the nation's fourth-highest car insurance bills.

Drivers in Lake Worth, Delray Beach and other cities have told The Post they resent having to pay rising premiums for $10,000 worth of PIP coverage no matter how much health insurance they already have through Medicare or private plans, with one calling it a form of "double taxation."

PIP covers minor injuries no matter who is at fault in an accident, but the system has been dogged by fraud and high costs despite numerous attempts to fix it. Drivers in South Florida have been forced to pay PIP rate increases up to 40 percent since the start of 2015, even if they have never been involved in an accident.

Gov. Rick Scott has defended keeping the PIP system, personally lobbying for a law slashing non-emergency benefits to $2,500 in 2012, two days after his Let's Get to Work committee received a $100,000 contribution from a Miami auto insurer. A spokesman said Tuesday the governor will review any bill that gets to his desk.

Hospitals, along with some specialty medical providers, attorneys and insurers, have defended keeping the system, saying it helps make sure drivers have at least some medical insurance.

"With the election of Donald Trump as president, the United States is facing the end of the Obamacare era," wrote Brian LaBovick, managing partner in the LaBovick, LaBovick & Diaz law firm in Palm Beach Gardens, in a letter to The Post in early December. "The transition from Obamacare into the new Trump plan could mean hundreds of thousands of Floridians will be left without health insurance. This is a quantum change in the analysis on getting rid of PIP."

His arguments for keeping the system include that "PIP prohibits people with non-permanent injuries from suing for big-money pain and suffering, and future economic damages. Second, PIP keeps our hospitals and emergency medical providers from going bankrupt treating accident victims who don't carry health insurance."

But most Florida drivers do have health insurance, and many argue they should not be required to buy PIP if they do.

The Brandes legislation has not yet been assigned a bill number or entered the state's electronic system.

Brandes and Rep. Bill Hager, R-Delray Beach, filed bills last year to end PIP, which did not get very far, but the senator said there is a growing sense the state can do better.

"The first step is to admit you have a problem," Brandes said. "We have a problem with PIP."

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