With Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) expected any day now to reintroduce his proposal to have federal taxpayers backstop the risk of state catastrophe funds, it bears examining just who it is that would benefit from the cheaper property insurance rates his legislation promises. Proponents of the legislation have floated a study suggesting it would save homeowners some $11.8 billion in premiums. Notably, ClimateWire today reported that one of the study’s authors claims a major hurricane could cost the federal cat fund as much as $138 billion, with little guarantee those funds would ever be repaid. But taking the estimate for granted that shifting insurance risk onto taxpayers would save someone billions of dollars…just who might that someone be? In Nelson’s home state of Florida, the only state with an existing catastrophe fund that would qualify for the proposed federal backstop, the answer proves to be quite interesting. Having taken some pretty serious lumps during the housing meltdown,...