The highly publicized travails of AIG that began in late 2008 escalated in 2009, culminating with the much-derided "government bailout" of $182 billion (according to money.cnn.com).

The New York Yankees won the World Series. (I'm not sure where that falls on the horribilis-mirabilis scale. However, given the ferocity of fans who care one way or the other, I thought it prudent to mention.)

In national political news, a man with the improbable name of Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as president of the United States, and then was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after only nine months in office.

A major health-care reform package passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

The specter of a federal insurance regulation reared its head again, this time as part of the U.S. Treasury's response to the financial crisis. In June, the Obama administration proposed a national office of insurance to oversee our industry. Troops jockeying for position on both sides of that line in the sand should consider how long it took for health-care reform to pass even one of the legislative bodies in Congress.

Back here in Florida, we had no shortage of issues to occupy our time and energy.

State Farm Florida started 2009 off with a bang by saying it wanted out; Gov. Charlie Crist said "good riddance;" and Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said "just a minute here." With Crist busy on the campaign trail in pursuit of his next public office job, McCarty and State Farm are engaged in what McCarty has termed "intense negotiations." Saying that he was "cautiously optimistic," McCarty recently declared that, "A leaner, smaller State Farm in Florida is better than no State Farm in Florida." As I write this, the talks appear to be progressing toward some sort of accommodation, so perhaps reason will prevail after all.

Chinese drywall of all things caused major headaches, both health-wise and in the legal and insurance communities. This battle among countries, states, builders, banks, insurers, regulators, and the caught-in-the-middle homeowners will take years to sort out.

The good news — no hurricanes!

The Florida Cabinet became an even hotter hotbed of political intrigue when three of its sitting members — Gov. Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum, and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink — declared themselves candidates for other elective offices. McCollum and Sink, of course, are both running for governor, ensuring that 2010 will bring us a newly elected governor, attorney general, and CFO.

All three positions have an enormous impact on Florida's insurance industry. As the aforementioned office seekers and the CFO candidates campaign (currently only Republicans Senate President Jeff Atwater and Representative Pat Patterson have declared for CFO — wonder why no Democrats want the job!), hopefully we will learn more about their visions for our state and the $12 billion industry we represent. We certainly do not lack for issues, both insurance-related and economic. With unemployment in Florida at double digits (11.1 percent in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), we need reasoned ideas for the future, not harsh rhetoric from the past. Perhaps new perspectives will bring better results. Now that's a New Year's wish we can extend to everyone.