FLORIDA GOV. BUSH INKS PREMIUM TAX DATABASE LEGISLATION:

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently signed into law a bill creating an electronic database for insurers to use in allocating property and casualty insurance premium taxes. “H.B. 251 is a major step forward in modernizing the process of allocating the premium taxes that insurers pay in Florida to help fund the pensions of the state’s police and firefighters,” said William Stander, regional manager for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). “It’s been a long haul getting to this point, but we believe the benefits of the new system will be worth the effort.” The new law reportedly simplifies the coding process for the allocation of premium taxes and creates an electronic database to enable insurers to determine a property’s location for allocation of premium taxes. The bill includes substantial “hold harmless” protections for insurers using the database. The bill also provides immunity from audit and market conduct penalties for any discrepancies under the current allocation system prior to Jan. 1, 2005. Under the old system insurance premium taxes were collected on property and casualty insurance policies, and then distributed to cities and special districts corresponding to the policies’ location. Insurers have reported problems determining the correct location of property covered under the insurance policies, which has led to occasional mistakes in the revenue distribution process. The electronic database will reside within the Department of Revenue (DOR) and should help insurers correctly determine the locations of covered property, making it easier for the collected premium taxes to go to the appropriate jurisdictions. The database will adopt formats approved by the American National Standards Institute’s Accredited Committee and designate the local taxing jurisdiction for each street address and address range in the state, as well as the code for each local taxing jurisdiction. The DOR and the municipalities are required to annually update the database, including information about annexations and other boundary changes.