Florida Senate - 2012                        COMMITTEE AMENDMENT
       Bill No. CS for SB 1406
       
       
       
       
       
       
                                Barcode 206742                          
       
                              LEGISLATIVE ACTION                        
                    Senate             .             House              
                  Comm: RCS            .                                
                  02/07/2012           .                                
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       The Committee on Governmental Oversight and Accountability
       (Bogdanoff) recommended the following:
       
    1         Senate Amendment 
    2  
    3         Delete lines 56 - 113
    4  and insert:
    5         Section 2. The Legislature finds that it is a public
    6  necessity that proprietary business information provided to the
    7  Office of Insurance Regulation by a title insurance agency or
    8  insurer, including, but not limited to, trade secrets, be made
    9  confidential and exempt from the requirements of s. 119.07(1),
   10  Florida Statutes, and s. 24(a), Article I of the State
   11  Constitution. The disclosure of information, such as revenue
   12  data, loss expense data, gross receipts, the amount of taxes
   13  paid, the amount of capital investment, customer identification,
   14  and the amount of employee wages paid, could injure a business
   15  in the marketplace by providing its competitors with detailed
   16  insights into the financial status and the strategic plans of
   17  the business, thereby diminishing the advantage that the
   18  business maintains over competitors that do not possess such
   19  information. Without this exemption, title insurance agencies
   20  and title insurers, whose records are generally not required to
   21  be open to the public, might refrain from providing accurate and
   22  unbiased data, thus impairing the Office of Insurance
   23  Regulation’s ability to set fair and adequate title insurance
   24  rates. Proprietary business information derives actual or
   25  potential independent economic value from not being generally
   26  known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means
   27  by, other persons who can derive economic value from its
   28  disclosure or use. The Office of Insurance Regulation, in
   29  performing its lawful duties and responsibilities, may need to
   30  obtain information from the proprietary business information.
   31  Without an exemption from public records requirements for
   32  proprietary business information provided to the Office of
   33  Insurance Regulation, such information becomes a public record
   34  when received and must be divulged upon request. Divulgence of
   35  any proprietary business information under the public records
   36  law would destroy the value of that property to the proprietor,
   37  causing a financial loss not only to the proprietor but also to
   38  the residents of this state due to the loss of reliable
   39  financial data necessary for fair and adequate rate regulation.
   40  Release of proprietary business information would give business
   41  competitors an unfair advantage and weaken the position in the
   42  marketplace of the proprietor that owns or controls the
   43  proprietary business information. The harm to businesses in the
   44  marketplace and to the effective administration of the
   45  ratemaking function caused by the public disclosure of such
   46  information far outweighs the public benefits derived from its
   47  release. In addition, the confidentiality provided by this act
   48  does not preclude the reporting of statistics in the aggregate
   49  concerning the collection of data, as well as the names of the
   50  title insurance agencies and title insurers participating in the
   51  data collection. Such aggregate reported data is available to
   52  the public and is important to an assessment of the setting of
   53  title insurance premiums. Thus, the Legislature declares that it
   54  is a public necessity that proprietary business information of
   55  title insurers and title insurance agencies provided to the
   56  Office of Insurance Regulation be made confidential and exempt
   57  from s. 119.07(1), Florida Statutes, and s. 24(a), Article I of
   58  the State Constitution.