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Alabamas chief revenue officer promotes captive insurance for coastal property owners Mobile PressRegister First home buyers cautious despite grant Newscomau

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:24:43 +0000
Foley facility wins contract to repair jet engine thrust reversers Wedding crasher steals cash purse from bride and bridesmaids in Mobile Alabama s chief revenue officer promotes captive insurance for coastal property owners Officials push Washington County Ala. sales tax cocaine debt leads to wife s shooting man testifies as Mobile murder trial begins Categories Aerospace RSS Bayfest RSS Breaking News RSS Business RSS Closings RSS Education RSS Elections RSS Entertainment RSS Food RSS Hurricane RSS Jazz Fest RSS Mardi Gras RSS SEC RSS Shelters RSS Sports RSS Top News RSS Top Stories RSS Weather RSS Favorite Links Archived Posts Alabama s chief revenue officer promotes captive insurance for coastal property owners Posted by Craig Myers Staff Reporter October AM Categories Top Stories ROBERTSDALE State Revenue Commissioner Tim Russell said the pieces are in place for local governments to form a long discussed captive insurance company to stabilize the coastal market and help stimulate its stagnant building industry. Russell stepped down as mayor of Foley in to pursue the self insurance concept and was appointed to the state Cabinet position this year. He told a gathering of about a dozen local and state leaders Monday that in surance woes are greater now. The governor said he wanted me to continue to work on the insurance crisis Russell said. And it is going to be worse now because of the financial crisis. If you had told me five years ago that AIG would be getting a billion bailout I never would have believed you. Press Register State Revenue Commissioner Tim Russell said the pieces are in place for local governments to form a long discussed captive insurance company to stabilize the coastal market and help stimulate its stagnant building industry. I think the answer is a captive. We re convinced that a captive will work. Russell an insurance executive for years said that while the source is not yet identified the state could invest up to million in hopes of restarting the tax producing coastal real estate industry. When you suffer in Mobile and Baldwin counties the entire state suffers Russell said. Insurance rates and policy cancellations increased dramatically since Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina in and and this year s active storm season hasn t helped he said. The cost and availability of coverage have impacted two of south Baldwin County s biggest moneymakers construction and real estate sales. Legislators have authorized captives to address the situation. This spring lawmakers added homes to the types of property that captives could cover. The law had previously limited them to insuring commercial prop erties including condo towers. The name captive comes from limiting the insurance to a certain geographic area or category of policyholder as a way of keeping rates down. A captive could be formed through a capital improvement district which could get tax breaks and issue bonds to provide the startup capital Russell said. A board appointed by the governments involved would oversee the company. Money invested would be held in reserve while reinsurers and premiums would be used to pay claims officials said. It would be owned and controlled by you would be owned by the cities and the county Russell said. And it would serve the people in the area that are putting up the reserves to make it work. It would start small and grow big. The next step will be for local governments to pass resolutions supporting the concept then find funds. Russell said captives by adding competition also could pressure private insurers to lower rates and increase coverage. A million captive formed by the state Gulf Shores Orange Beach Baldwin and Mobile counties could take in about million of the estimated million in premiums in the two county area he said. Ken Grimes city administrator of Orange Beach and County Commissioner Wayne Gruenloh were among those at the gathering Monday. Both said the concept is worth a try. It could help stabilize our economic foundation Gruenloh said. The risk is not great and the reward is so much greater. Grimes said that while giving residents more peace of mind that they will be insured captives could provide the insurance for home and business mortgages. Print This Page Send To A Friend Permalink Learn More Share Reddit Digg del.icio.us Google Yahoo Facebook What is this COMMENTS Post a comment Username Don t Have a Username Sign up here Password Remember Me Welcome back Comments you may use HTML tags for style From Our Advertisers Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement . Please read our Privacy Policy . Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Contact interactivity management . al.com . All Rights Reserved. RSS Feeds Complete Index Skip to Search Box Section Navigation Network Navigation Content View the Sitemap NEWS.com.au Fox Sports Newspapers CareerOne carsguide TrueLocal Real Estate MySpace AU Herald Sun News Homepage Breaking News Victoria National World Learn Special Reports Sunday Herald Sun Photo Galleries Weather Archives Entertainment Entertainment Homepage Confidential Movies Music TV Audio Video Sport Beijing Olympics Sport Homepage AFL Cricket Soccer Racing Tennis Golf Motor Racing Basketball Rugby League Rugby Union Swimming Athletics Netball Business Business Homepage Breaking News Business Owner Terry McCrann s Column Fully Frank Barefoot Investor Money Real Estate Real Estate News House of the Week Real Estate Confidential Property Guide New Developments Property Search Commercial Property Travel Australia World Holiday Ideas Travel Advice Each week the market has got worse and worse she said. Last week when the stock market crashed I wasn t looking good. I felt my timing wasn t great. I didn t have a great number of people coming through the house. Although she didn t get the price she wanted Ms Webbe didn t have to look far to find cautionary tales. Just a few doors down another house was auctioned yesterday. The strong crowd remained silent and the house was passed in without anyone making a single bid. While the Government s decision last week to double the first home owner s grant from to for established dwellings and tripling it to for newly built properties made little difference to real estate balance sheets on the weekend there were indications that the financial carrot could turn the industry around. Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Enzo Raimondo said that although few first timers made the plunge over the weekend there was a noticeable rise in the number of young people inspecting properties. People are still being cautious they re not going to hear about the grant and buy a home straight away they re going to look around first he said. First home buyers make up to per cent of the market. We will definitely see a boost soon. One of those to benefit from the doubling of the first home buyer s grant is Sydney couple Corey Hammond and Caitlin Flynn who exchanged contracts on a unit at Cronulla in southern Sydney on Friday. Friends and relatives of the plumber had been urging the couple to buy now. It s our first home we thought we would get in early Ms Flynn said. It s a good time to buy. The couple planned to buy the unit before learning of the increase to the grant and the extra was most welcome. It gives us an extra to go straight off the payments and the other is helping with the insurance mortgage Mr Hammond said. The Courier Mail reported homes in Queensland were sold over the weekend for tens of thousands less than would have been expected just six months ago. Real Estate Institute of Queensland chairman Peter McGrath said people wanting to sell would have to lower their price by up to per cent if they wanted a sale. A New Farm property that one agent said could have been expected to sell for more than a million late last year fetched . Another bought for just over . million a year ago was passed in at . million. If you re one of the many in the upper end of the market where there is a lot of choice you will be looking at a drop of per cent on what you thought it was worth at the beginning of the year Mr McGrath said. According to industry analysts the worry for investors is that when the market does begin to turn around it will be artificially inflated by first time buyers armed with their increased government grant. Australian Property Monitors senior economist Liam O Hara said that although the increase to the home buyers grant might see clearance rates become healthier over the next few months ultimately it would exacerbate the problem of housing affordability. What we will see is prices go up but throwing money at people is not an effective way to tackle housing affordability Mr O Hara said. That extra is not going to mean much in six months time when a first home buyer will be looking at paying more for a property than they would have had to today. However not everyone is pessimistic. Harley Dale senior economist with the Housing Industry Association said there could well be a boost in the market over the next months. We expect an additional original dwellings to be built as a result of the tripling of the grant he said. Additional reporting Milanda Rout Email Print Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Post to NewsVine Post to Facebook What are these Disclaimer Add your feedback here We welcome your comments on this story. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Please provide your full name. We also require a working email address not for publication but for verification. The location field is optional. Read our publication guidelines . Full name Email address Location optional Your comments max characters Remember my details Tick to save the details above so you don t need to retype each time you comment. Email me if my comment is published Australian law requires us to moderate all comments published on this site. 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