State Farm, Florida's biggest auto insurer, files for 9.2 percent rate increase

Cost-sensitive Floridians have another increase to worry about: The price for auto insurance is trending up.

Among those leading the way is State Farm, by far the biggest player in Florida's auto insurance market. The Illinois-based insurer filed with regulators this week for an average 9.2 percent rate hike for its 2.7 million auto policies statewide.

"We've seen the number of auto claims increase, and the cost of those claims increase and that's reflected in our rate request," State Farm spokesman Chris Neal said Wednesday. "We had several years in a row where we were reducing rates. … Clearly that trend has ended."

With roughly 20 percent of the market, State Farm could be a bellwether for other insurers to follow. Some, including Allstate and Geico, have already made the plunge.

Last month, an average 16 percent rate hike went into effect for policyholders of Allstate Fire and Casualty, affecting about 24 percent of Allstate's auto policyholders. Spokeswoman Amy Moore said Allstate Fire and Casualty customers face an average increase of $82 per six-month policy.

Both Allstate and State Farm cited the rising cost of doing business in Florida as the chief culprit. Moore said Allstate, which insures 1.7 million vehicles in Florida, has higher costs for bodily injury payouts, for medical payments, for personal injury protection (or PIP) and to cover accidents involving uninsured motorists.

Lynn McChristian, Florida representative of the Insurance Information Institute, tied the rising cost of auto insurance in part to the recession. Fewer people are buying insurance, or they are buying less than they need, which forces other drivers to make it up through higher premiums.

A study last year by the Insurance Research Council showed Florida in the top five of states with the highest numbers of uninsured motorists. About one out of every four Florida drivers does not have auto coverage compared with one in six nationally.

Auto insurance costs "are trending up nationally, and we have some (added) challenges in Florida," McChristian said. "We have the high cost of fraud and that is a problem affecting our rates."

In State Farm's case, the two biggest factors are higher costs for bodily injury liability and personal injury protection, Neal said.

State Farm, which is also the state's dominant private insurer for property coverage, has endured a rough year on the auto front. As of September, it had lost about 99,000 auto policies year-to-date, though its remaining base of 2.7 million policies still towers over all competitors.

Neal, who described the falloff as noticeable but "not precipitous," said it was unclear how many auto policyholders left in retaliation for State Farm filing to withdraw completely from the property insurance market because of hurricane risks. In December, it struck a deal to stay while shedding 125,000 policies and raising rates 15 percent.

Unlike property insurance, writing auto insurance in Florida has been a profitable business drawing plenty of competitors.

For much of the last decade, drivers in Florida and much of the country have benefited from that competitive landscape through lower rates.

According to a recent report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the average cost of auto insurance in the country fell by 2.6 percent in 2007. Auto insurance expenditures also fell by 1.8 percent in 2006 and 1.3 percent in 2005.

State Farm Florida said its overall premiums statewide decreased about 1 percent between late 2005 and 2009.

Jack McDermott, spokesman for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, indicated it's premature to say we've moved out of the era of auto rate cuts.

"We have not observed any significant changes in the auto insurance marketplace in Florida, although recent rate filings have shown some indications of an upward trend in bodily injury expenses," he said.

Regulators are reviewing State Farm's request, he said, cautioning against assuming the filing is representative of the market as a whole.

Still, what the state hasn't seen yet in rate requests may be coming down the pike.

McChristian of the Insurance Information Institute pointed out that medical costs rose by 3.2 percent in 2009 while auto body work costs rose 3.7 percent.

Recouping those costs, plus paying for rising incidents of fraud, is expected to trigger higher rates in 2010.

"It is a delayed effect," she said.

Florida ranks as the fifth-most expensive state for auto insurance with an average expenditure of $1,043 in 2007, according to the institute.

TECO Energy reports fourth quarter net income of $53.5 million

TECO Energy Inc., reported fourth quarter 2009 net income of $53.5 million or $0.25 per share, up from $22 million or $0.10 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The fourth quarter results brought TECO's full-year net income and earnings per share to $213.9 million or $1 per share in 2009, compared to $162.4 million or $0.77 per share in 2008.

"We are pleased with the strong results in 2009 in the face of the economic recession which impacted both our utility and coal businesses," said, Sherrill Hudson, TECO Energy chairman and chief executive officer. "In 2009, we took steps at TECO Energy and the operating companies to position our utilities to earn their allowed returns and for TECO Energy to deliver earnings growth in 2010."

Clearwater infant taken to hospital after heart stops

CLEARWATER — Clearwater Fire and Rescue responded to a call Friday morning about a month-old infant whose heart had stopped, authorities said.

Paramedics performed CPR on the baby before it was taken to a All Children's Hospital, said Clearwater public safety spokesperson Beth Watts. The child was in critical condition as of Friday afternoon.

Clearwater Fire responded to the call at 635 Fairwood Ave. at about 10:45 a.m.

The father called 911 when he noticed the infant wasn't breathing, Watts said. The mother wasn't home.

Investigators are trying to figure out what made the baby unresponsive, Watts said.

The department's Crimes Against Children and Families unit also has responded to the home, which is typical in this type of matter, Watts said.

No other details were immediately available.

Police are looking for hit-and-run driver

LARGO — Police are trying to find a driver who hit a pedestrian and left the scene on Saturday night. The accident happened before 10 p.m. at East Bay Drive and Seacrest Drive.

Witnesses described the vehicle as a newer model silver or light colored Ford or Cadillac. They told police the driver stopped after hitting the pedestrian and then raced off, running a red light. The pedestrian, whose identity has not been released, was in critical condition, according to police. The car likely has front end damage, including broken headlights and a broken windshield, police said.

Anyone with information about the vehicle or the driver should call, Sgt. Dulski at (727) 587-6730

Baby nearly drowns in Tarpon Springs pool

TARPON SPRINGS — A 9-month-old baby was flown to the hospital on Sunday after nearly drowning in a family pool.

Zoey Pothast's grandparents were taking care of her, when Zoey's grandfather discovered her in the pool of their Tarpon Springs home, police said.

"They were both cooking and going in and out of the house," said Lt. Barb Templeton, spokeswoman for Tarpon Springs Police Department.

Each thought the other had an eye on the baby, who "crawls very quickly," Templeton said.

Emergency crews were called to the house at 1292 Blackrush Drive shortly after 2 p.m. Zoey was transported by Bayflite helicopter to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

She was conscious Sunday afternoon, but Templeton said medical personnel will monitor her closely over the next few days to make sure she's okay.

Templeton said Zoey's parents, who also live in the home, had left their daughter in the care of her grandparents. Tarpon Springs detectives are still investigating, but preliminary information indicates that the incident was an accident, she said.

Little entering building pipeline in Tampa Bay region

TAMPA — Not so long ago, land use meetings in Hillsborough County were daylong affairs, held twice a month, with dozens of people seeking to rezone their land for more intense development.

County commissioners on Tuesday will hold their only land use meeting of February. It's scheduled for just half a day and not likely to take that long, with only a handful of applications up for consideration. No more meetings are scheduled until March 23.

It's no secret that new construction, the lifeblood of Florida's economy, has all but ground to a halt. But the tumbleweeds at local government zoning meetings across the region, such as the one in Hillsborough, are a gloomy harbinger.

They show that people aren't even taking the first steps necessary to begin construction once the economy turns around.

"In my 14 years as an elected official, this is the slowest I've seen it," said Tampa City Council chairman Tom Scott, whose own board just canceled a meeting scheduled for next week to consider developer requests. "I'd say it's an indication that the economy has not fully rebounded."

And it's one more validation of what experts say about the rebound in Florida taking longer than it will in much of the rest of the country.

From Pinellas to Hernando counties, zoning officials report a dramatic slowdown in people taking the first steps necessary to develop their land. Employees that review schematics for new development have faced some of the heaviest layoffs as local governments cut spending due to falling property values.

In largely built-out Pinellas County, the decline has not been as sharp compared with Hillsborough, where new construction raged at a torrid pace in the early part of this decade. Property owners are still seeking modest changes to what they can do on their land, but larger changes are more scarce.

"You're really kind of betting on the economy" when seeking to rezone a piece of property, said Brian Smith, Pinellas County's planning director.

Officials in Hernando County, particularly hard hit by unemployment and foreclosures, say the requests heading to commissioners are typically from small-property owners seeking to subdivide a single lot. Or they are mom-and-pop business owners seeking a minor change that would, say, allow them to add a drive-through entrance.

There, commissioners have folded their monthly land use meetings into their regular meetings, when budget and other government decisions are made.

"We've been keeping a steady pace. Small, but steady," said Omar DePablo, a Hernando County planner.

Stories about Florida's moribund construction industry have focused on the lack of new construction or requests for building permits that immediately precede the arrival of hard hats.

Zoning and land use meetings are where the first steps toward new construction take place, with developers seeking generally conceptual approval for what they can do to their land.

It can be where property owners or development representatives seek permission, for instance, to build homes on quarter-acre lots rather than on half-acre parcels or win approval to build shops as well as offices.

Often, those requests predate actual construction by months and years, and it's not uncommon for development plans to go through multiple iterations. Developers routinely complain it all takes too long, costing them money, during the good times.

Now would seem to be a particularly good time to get a more expeditious review, but few are taking advantage.

"A lot of the people who might want to do that probably don't have the money to do that. People just don't have the money," said land use lawyer Jim Porter of the Ruden McClosky law firm. "It's not cheap to do."

There are application fees from government, of course. And there are costs to hire engineers, environmental consultants and other experts who figure out how to turn that corner lot into a new drugstore and where to put the stormwater retention pond.

Layoffs among government planners have meant that the review is not necessarily much quicker or cheaper.

"If you're a property owner and don't have a developer ready to buy your property, there's no real reason to do it," Porter said.

Marine Forecast

Today: NE wind around 6 kt becoming variable and less than 5 kt in the morning. Sunny. Seas around 1 ft.

Tonight: Variable winds less than 5 kt becoming ESE around 6 kt after midnight. Partly cloudy. Seas around 1 ft.

Tuesday: SE wind 7 to 13 kt becoming SW in the afternoon. Partly sunny. Seas around 1 ft.

Tuesday Night: WSW wind 9 to 13 kt becoming NNW after midnight. Mostly cloudy. Seas 1 to 2 ft.

Wednesday: NNW wind 10 to 12 kt. Mostly sunny. Seas around 2 ft.

Wednesday Night: NNW wind 8 to 10 kt. Partly cloudy. Seas around 1 ft.

Thursday: N wind 6 to 8 kt. Mostly sunny. Seas around 1 ft.

Thursday Night: N wind around 7 kt becoming ENE after midnight. Mostly cloudy. Seas 1 ft or less.

Friday: ENE wind 8 to 11 kt becoming NNE in the afternoon. Mostly cloudy. Seas around 1 ft.