Shopping Comparison Site

Gov. Rick Scott kills insurance rate comparison website

Though they differ on the reason for taking down the site, spokesmen for Gov. Rick Scott and Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty say shopandcomparerates.com was temporarily unplugged this spring for "updates and enhancements."

It has remained offline ever since.

State officials promise they will restore the comparison shopping tool soon, but they would not say when.

"We don't have a specific date set for that at this time," said Lane Wright, the governor's press secretary.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist started the site in 2007 amid a campaign to pressure insurance companies to lower their rates.

The site allowed homeowners to compare the average rates in their county charged by individual insurers for two different styles of house.

It was the only public tool to check insurance rates, in a state where nearly 4,000 insurance policies are dropped each day, and more than 100,000 homeowners sign a new policy each month.

Bill Newton, director of the Florida Consumer Action Network, lamented the loss of the comparison website this week.

"I guess consumers are on their own, no help from the government," he said. "You can decide from advertising which company is best."

The site disappeared amid passage of legislation that allowed large rate increases and laws that reduce policyholder rights. Consumer advocates and even some lawmakers called the new laws a gift to the insurance industry that came at the expense of Florida homeowners.

Also this spring, lawmakers killed a never-published public report card that graded property insurers on how fast they pay claims and by the number of consumer complaints they rack up. A draft obtained by the Herald-Tribune showed one third of insurers in Florida scored low marks.

Scott's office only publicly acknowledged the disappearance of the comparison shopping site after a Herald-Tribune reporter this week questioned its whereabouts.

Scott's press secretary said the governor's office took down the site because regulators were not updating it to keep pace with rate increases and because it had been branded by his predecessor. At the time of its demise, the site still bore the former governor's name and signature.

Would-be insurance shoppers as of Wednesday were automatically bounced to a state website featuring Scott's latest accomplishments.

Consumer visits to the site peaked at 12,000 a month in 2010 but waned when Scott took office and removed a link to the website from the state's main homepage. According to a private monitoring service, Compete, traffic was rising sharply by the end of March when the plug was pulled.

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