"It is still the silent threat to Florida's fiscal future and we have to continue to find a way to offload risk from the Florida taxpayer who doesn't yet realize how significant it could be if a catastrophic event occurs in some of our most populous areas," Atwater said.

A Different Tone

Property insurance has not received much attention on the campaign trail yet, with most of the candidates focused on the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or hot-button issues like immigration. So while those running for governor have avoided making any confrontational statements about property insurance, just as importantly they have avoided making any firm commitments as to what exactly they would do if elected.

Attorney General Bill McCollum — one of two main GOP contenders for governor — says in the "long run" the state should not have companies such as Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which remains the state's largest property insurance carrier. However, he says that the "reality" is that the state-created carrier will need to remain in place to offer insurance to those who cannot find it elsewhere.

McCollum vows that he will work with both the public and the insurance industry to bolster the market. "We need to bring other insurers back into the state, and when I am governor we are going to have a different tone than what we have now," McCollum told reporters and editors at an annual press gathering last month in Sarasota. "It doesn't mean that they [insurers] are going to get to have their way on everything. We've got to have regulation in our state."

McCollum also contends that he will aggressively push Florida's delegation to get a national catastrophic insurance plan that includes a federally backed plan to cover hurricanes. During the last several years Florida's congressional delegation has pushed different variations of such a plan but has met stiff resistance from senators and members of Congress from non-coastal states.

McCollum has refused to say what he would have done with previous insurance proposals, including the 2009 measure that would have allowed well-capitalized carriers to avoid most rate regulation. The bill was vetoed by Crist.

McCollum said he has been "careful" to avoid making any statements about how he would have handled past proposals because "I want an open playing field when I'm governor to deal with this. I'm going to deal with it; we cannot duck around it any longer," he said.

Rick Scott, a health care executive who has used millions of his own money to make the Aug. 24 primary competitive, said in a phone interview that he believes that work needs to be done to attract more private insurers into the state. He said he does not want state regulation to be a barrier to getting more private capital in the market, but stopped short of endorsing previous legislative proposals and said that there is a need for some regulation of property insurance.

Bud Chiles, the independent candidate for governor who jumped into the race at the last minute, also said he would like to see a decrease in the number of policies in Citizens, but he would not support giving insurers more leeway over their rates.

"I would be very vigilant making sure that consumers get a lot more protection than they are getting now," Chiles said last month in Sarasota.

Sink Calls for Change

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the main Democratic contender for governor, has spoken out in the past about the need for changes to insurance regulation. She pushed for scaling back the size of Florida's reinsurance fund — the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund — and this year she supported reducing the time that people could file for claims following a hurricane.

"It is critical that we stabilize our property insurance market in this state," Sink said at the same Sarasota meeting that McCollum attended.

However, Sink does not think insurers should be able to decide their own rates. "We should not have deregulation in the insurance market," she said. "The role of the insurance commissioner is critical and important. Companies who believe that they need to have a different rate structure ought to be able to come and make their case in front of the insurance regulator."

Still, Sink said that if she is elected she will be "very aggressive" in bringing more private insurers back to the state. She noted it will be a "multiyear process" to change Florida's market and to turn Citizens back into an insurer of last resort.

"I believe we can attract companies to come and put their private capital at risk so that we, the Florida taxpayers, don't bear almost the entire burden in the event of a catastrophic hurricane," Sink said.

Insurance Commissioner's Fate Uncertain

There is one thing that could occur if Sink is elected governor. It would probably set the stage for the departure of current Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty. Both Crist and McCollum have generally been supportive of McCarty, even as his performance has come under fire by legislators.

Sink, however, has routinely criticized how he has handled his job and has demanded that McCarty appear before the governor and Cabinet to answer questions about how his office is dealing with the state's fragile property insurance market.

The job of insurance commissioner used to be an elected position. After voters approved a reorganization of the Cabinet in 2002 the job was placed under the governor and Cabinet.

However, there was a twist in that law: It takes three votes — including yes votes from both the governor and the chief financial officer — to either hire or fire the insurance commissioner.

McCarty was first hired by then-Gov. Jeb Bush. Since Sink and Crist have come into office there has been never a public vote to reaffirm his hiring. Sink additionally has backed legislation that would have subjected McCarty to a public vote on an annual basis.