What medical malpractice crisis?

While Florida doctors continue to argue that they are paying too much for medical malpractice insurance, there are growing signs that the insurance market that was left for dead in 2003 is making a stunning comeback. Case in point: take the First Professional Insurance Company, the state's largest medmal insurer, which recently announced that it posted an 18 point increase in profits and a 35 percent jump in revenues in the first nine months of 2005, as compared to the same period last year. "We are the strongest we have ever been," FPIC President and CEO John Byers told investment analysts last November.

And just weeks before FPIC posted its latest financial news, the state's Office of Insurance Regulation quietly released its 2005 annual report on the medmal market, which found that by almost every measurement, the market has substantially improved since lawmakers enacted the 2003 reforms. One of the highest profile insurance legislative battles in decades, the reforms were designed to reduce jury awards and attorneys' fees in medical malpractice cases. Led by Gov. Jeb Bush, after a hard-fought battle among the doctors, hospitals, and trial bar, the legislature agreed on a series of provisions designed to restore the market and stabilize premiums.