CEI Expands Insurance Project in Florida

Washington, D.C., November 18,
2008—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is expanding its existing project on
insurance regulation and has hired Christian Cámara, a former state legislative aide, to serve as director of
its new Florida office. The new Office will be located in Tallahassee, Florida
and focus on important insurance issues throughout the Southeast. Policy
Analyst Michelle Minton will oversee
the efforts of the new office as part of CEI’s
Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets. Senior Fellow Eli
Lehrer will continue to oversee CEI’s overall work on
insurance and credit markets.

“I am very excited to be joining the
CEI team,” said Florida Office Director Christian Cámara. “As a lifelong citizen of Florida, I am concerned about the state’s
many challenges, but have always felt that these may be positively addressed
through our nation’s core principles of liberty, limited government, and the
free market. CEI has been a national leader in advancing these principles,
and I look forward to working with them to promote meaningful
property insurance reform in Florida.”

The CEI’s Center will focus on efforts to encourage sensible mitigation
strategies, reduce the financial risks that the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund
poses to the state, cut the size of the Florida Citizens Property Insurance
Corporation, and protect the environment.

“CEI’s Center for Risk, Regulation, and Markets has become a leading
voice in the national debate on catastrophic policy issues and the central
voice in Florida’s
regulatory discourse,” said Minton. “We are very excited to be
opening an office in Florida
which we see as the eye of the storm affecting the entire nation.”

Florida has been at the center of the debate over insurance
reform and the questions of who really pays the costs of risky decisions. As
with all financial risks, the more government actions spare individuals from
the pain of making poor decisions, the more reckless people will become.