Earlier this month, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. dumped four of its Office of Corporate Integrity members, claiming the action was to reduce redundancy and beef up its fraud investigation unit.
The incident coincided with state inspector general Melinda Miguel's investigation of Citizens' alleged lavish executive spending, which prompted officials with two consumer advocacy groups to call on Gov. Rick Scott to expand the inspector general's research into the company's actions.
"We see these moves by Citizens as making government in Florida less responsive, less accountable, and this could potentially increase the state of Florida's corruption risk on national and international integrity rankings," said Dan Krassner, executive director of the nascent good-government group Integrity Florida.
This morning, Krassner and Sean Shaw — the founder of Policyholders of Florida — penned a letter to Gov. Scott asking him to allow Miguel to expand her investigation by looking into the termination of the four members, as well as why they were required to sign confidentiality agreements at the time of their departure.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2012.