Mystery at Citizens Property Insurance

One of the many enduring mysteries at Citizens Property Insurance is why Bob Ricker is still the head of it.

Bob Ricker, December 2003: "I am committed to managing Citizens like a true insurance company... . "

Bob Ricker, November 2005: "Citizens Executive Director Bob Ricker... says he was unaware of many of the personal and financial conflicts his hire carried aboard."

Thanks to Paige St. John and other reporters who have kept Citizens Property Insurance under the microscope, we've known that people Ricker hired and supervised directly are accused of taking bribes and that others he supervised were busy feathering their own nests while hurricane claims went unattended.

Today, we learn that the adjusting companies he employed worked without written contracts while they ripped off Citizens Property with padded bills:

Pay stubs and invoices document that [claims adjusting contractor] Quantum billed Citizens as much as $950 a day for adjusters who in turn received as little as $238 a day. In addition, Quantum billed Citizens for seven days a week of expenses but paid those adjusters only for five or six days.

"Citizens was aware, and they did nothing about it," said Roosevelt Johnson, who was among the veteran adjusters surprised to learn Quantum billed Citizens about three times what he was paid for his work.

Can it be that "managing Citizens like a true insurance company" means screwing nearly everybody -- except the corporate executives themselves?

There's more in the Ft. Myers News-Press.