Planning, Communications, Advocacy
My last report referenced “greed” as the primary ingredient disintegrating Florida’s delicate property market. Specifically: a quest for billable hours and devious and deceptive solicitations. There was also a little politics as usual. The latter manifested in a House of Representatives that not only failed to implement needed reforms but, was never given the chance to debate them.
SB-1728 passed the Florida Senate last Thursday, but…according to numerous reports, it’s stalled in the House and may possibly die there. Thus signaling our property markets last breath and the collapse of the fragile House of Cards lawmakers created after the ‘04/’05 storms. [Read more…] about The Tipping Point!
In a state like Florida, where some attorneys and 3rd parties are known to school each other in the development and use of intricate litigation schemes, it’s sometimes comforting to see just how far such “schooling” can go in other states. Here, contractors are taught how to solicit claims or how to use enhanced invoicing techniques from attorneys bent on billable hours. We also know in Florida that Public Adjusters school some attorneys on the value of demanding global settlements as a means to inflate the PA contingency fee and in exchange for hundreds of claim referrals worth millions to the attorney.
Teaching others to get the very most they can from the insurance mechanism was also the theme in JS contributor Barry Zalma’s article about a fraud teacher with some amazing chutzpah. ENJOY! [Read more…] about Learning Insurance at…
I was particularly taken by a debate during Citizens Property Insurance Company (Citizens) December 15, 2021, Board of Governors meeting. You can and should watch it beginning precisely at the 42:07 mark on the Florida Channel .
Lead by Chairman Carlos Beruff (a real estate developer and home builder) board members discussed whether it’s financially more responsible for Citizens to forego the purchase of reinsurance in favor of bonds as a means to preserve surplus and reduce potential deficits.
Lead by nearly 200 agents attending FAIA’s “Capitol Days”, Florida’s insurance industry converged in Tallahassee last week.
Agents have become the front line for Florida’s dreadful property market, absorbing consumer shrapnel like I’ve not seen in my 45 years dealing with such matters. Along with many others, they appear quite fed up–their presence punctuated with placards exclaiming “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Roof!” and, my favorite…an airplane circling above towing a banner saying the same thing.
The following report is from JS expert contributor Bill Wilson, CPCU, ARM, AIM, AAM. It’s offered here with a link to the original paper written by Philadelphia attorney, Randy Maniloff. Together, Wilson’s article and Maniloff’s paper, provide a succinct legal explanation for why COVID-19 is widely considered by the courts as not covered under most Business Interruption policies. I thought there would be many readers of my blog who would like to keep this handy for discussions with clients regarding COVID-19 coverage issues.
Late last year I failed to report that the fight against Assignment of Benefits (AOB) took another hopeful step forward.
Recall the reforms of 2019 in which new requirements were placed on AOB’s? As helpful as they were, they were not an outright prohibition as some thought. Instead HB-7065 made the use of AOB’s less likely and provided safeguards against consumer abuse. These safeguards, including improvements to the one-way attorney fee statute, were intended to reduce invoice inflation, massive fraud and mounds of frivolous litigation. The operative language restricted AOB’s to emergency work which is the lesser of $3,000 or 1% of Coverage A. (See NOTE #1 below)
Lawmakers just got back in town–hopefully they’ll devote necessary time to triage Florida’s immobilized property market. Such should include some badly needed new approaches as well as cauterizing past reform efforts, 2019’s HB 7065 and 2021’s SB-76.
Since last year’s session, litigation has only tightened its strangle hold on Florida’s property system–fueling speculation that our insurance market is being (has been) displaced by a $4.5 billion litigation market. [Read more…] about Attention Florida Lawmakers–PART I
You may remember my opinion about public adjusters who are paid a percentage of a claim also being allowed to act as “disinterested” appraisers under a policy’s appraisal clause. In June of 2020 I published an article (one which you should read titled Public Adjusters—How Interested are the Disinterested?) in which I said the practice may be on its way out.
Johnson Strategies is pleased to provide another article from one of the premier insurance educators in America on form, coverage, and technical issues; founder and director of the Big “I” Virtual University; Retired Assoc. VP of Education and Research from Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America and JS Expert Contributor, Bill Wilson CPCU, ARM, AIM, AAM. [Read more…] about When Policy Forms Don’t Do What You Think They Do