The famous Notre Dame football coach Frank Leahy coined the phrase, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Long after these inspirational words were first spoken, they continue to motivate countless numbers of ordinary people to do extraordinary things (not the least of which was a last-stand resurgence of the Delta Tau Chi fraternity in the classic movie, "Animal House!"). This encouraging phrase must also apply to Florida's independent agents as they confront the realization of today's triple threat: Full-blown, politically made insurance "reforms," a prolonged soft market, and the worse economy since the Great Depression.

While these conditions are daunting to many agency owners, there are significant changes on the horizon that will soon make for a different day. Most notable is a wholesale change coming in Florida's political landscape that simply has to be better than the populist crusade led against the insurance industry by Gov. Charlie Crist.

The dismal shape of Florida's private property insurance market demands this new reality. Once avoidable market outcomes have now been realized in the form of a rapidly increasing Citizens Property Insurance Corp. population and non-catastrophic losses pushing private carriers to the brink. Florida's surreal proliferation of public adjusters who now hover over the property insurance carcass are symptomatic of four years of political pandering and a complicit regulator.