While Governor Charlie Crist and many other politicians have been promising lower property insurance rates, a new twist has taken place.

When U.S. Senator Bill Nelson was the state insurance commissioner he initiated a public computer catastrophe model that was supposed to protect us against the private computer catastrophe models that the insurance companies use. These models predict the likelihood of a weather related catastrophe.

The public model was created by a team at Florida International University in Miami at a cost of $2.7 million of taxpayer money.

So what is the twist. The public model was supposed to provide checks and balances to the private models used by the insurance industry. Unfortunately, the public model predicted catastrophic losses almost twice as high as the private models. If the insurance industry sets their rates based on the public model instead of saving money, we could all be paying much higher property insurance rates, plus we will be paying for the system that all made this possible.