South Carolina's insurance director faced angry coastal homeowners

South Carolina's insurance director faced angry coastal homeowners again Thursday, complaining about wind insurance rates, which they say are still going up.
After Hurricane Katrina, many homeowners along the coast saw their wind insurance rates skyrocket or get cancelled.
Last year, the state re-drew the lines for the wind pool, making more residents eligible for state wind coverage.
But homeowners at Thursday's public forum said their rates are still going up, if they can find coverage at all.
The homeowners say they want the state to require that the risk be more spread out, so that people in one part of the state don't subsidize rates for people in another area.
"Those insurance companies coming in are making gross profits and there's too much gross profits in the United States right now, and it's hurting us in the middle class people that really try to live comfortably down here in South Carolina," said Murrells Inlet homeowner Lou Morell.
But state insurance director Scott Richardson says the state is trying not to over-regulate like other states and allow the free market to solve the problem.
"We're allowing the market to dodge and weave and settle itself. Let me tell you, Florida is still a mess, Louisiana is still a mess, Mississippi is a mess and we're not," Richardson said.
But homeowners complained that the wind pool lines seem to be arbitrary, with insurance rates that are all over the place. One man said his neighbor pays $900 for insurance, while he pays $2300.
Richardson said it'll take about three years for enough companies to come into the market to be competitive and lower rates but we're only one year into that process.
State Senator Luke Rankin says he believes Thursday's forum, which began at 2:00 p.m., was purposely scheduled at a time when he and other senators couldn't attend. He says the public was given little advance notice of the meeting and that was also on purpose.