Insurance costs stall Monkey Buses

BY JOE HENDRICKS SUN CORRESPONDENT | jhendricks@amisun.com

ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Due to increased insurance costs, the popular Monkey Bus shuttle service on and around the Island has been suspended with the hope of resuming operations soon.

Sally Dirbas and her son, Mitchell Gross, bought the Monkey Bus business from its previous owners in June 2022. According to Dirbas, the Monkey Bus suspended service a few minutes before midnight at the close of business on Aug. 2.

The next day, the following announcement was posted on the Monkey Bus Facebook page: “Since the new ownership took over the Monkey Bus a year ago, we have worked incredibly hard to improve our service with new buses, well-qualified drivers, tens of thousands of dollars in maintenance, new stereos, security cameras in every bus and much more.

“Despite our efforts to run this business in a way not only us, but the community also can be proud of, we continue to fight a battle that has been longer than we could have ever expected. That battle is insurance costs, which have risen so high that we cannot continue to run until we restructure and come to a long-term agreement with a company that we can afford.

“The Monkey Bus is a local, familyowned ‘mom and pop’ company and we will get everything worked out. We are not going out of business, and we are not leaving the community we love and call home. Thanks for your support, 99% of all the messages and feedback we get are positive and we are beyond appreciative. We will keep you updated on progress and hope to have this resolved quickly,” the announcement says.

“I have to have commercial transportation insurance because the liability of having passengers is so much more than a regular vehicle,” Dirbas told The Sun.

After acquiring the business in 2022, Dirbas obtained an insurance policy from Progressive Insurance. But, when later reading that policy’s fine print, she realized the policy didn’t allow the Monkey Buses to pick up passengers at a residence, condo or hotel.

“I could only drive them from business to business,” she said.

In February, Dirbas took out a new insurance policy with the National Indemnity Company (NICO). The new policy initially cost $300 more per month than the previous policy but appeared to provide all the needed coverage. Two weeks later, Dirbas was informed that her new policy was increasing from $2,195 a month to nearly $20,000 a month because the insurance company re-categorized the Monkey Bus’s insurance needs to be more akin to that of a commercial bus line.

According to Dirbas, NICO is one of only three insurance underwriters nationwide that write the type of insurance policy she needs. While trying to resolve the extreme rate hike, Dirbas said she paid the $20,000 monthly insurance bill out of her

SEE INSURANCE, PAGE 23