Lisa watching the action on the Florida House floor below
It’s been a tough legislative session. As many of you know, I do my best to educate legislators about why it makes sense to keep the market as a whole in perspective – from policyholders, to reinsurers, to investors, to insurers, to claims adjusters, to underwriting teams, to contractors, to realtors and beyond. If you think about it, the legislature did their best to provide long term consumer rate relief with House Bill 837, the “historic” tort reform bill and less than a week later introduced a bill that while technically did not undo provisions in HB 837, it eliminated the positive momentum we thought would take place to restore a healthy and competitive homeowners insurance market. We are all experiencing the enormous (and required) rate increases and doing our best to support those on the front lines who have to console consumer after consumer who are facing sticker shock. The legislature did nothing to provide short term rate relief. This is a view reflected by a growing number of news media, including this Orlando Sentinel commentary.
One insurance executive said that the insurer accountability bill, SB 7052, is worse than HB 1A for those of you around to remember that 2007 bill. Another said that it makes no sense to pass a bill that has no impact on reducing rates and another said that out of the over 700,000 Ian claims with a DFS complaint ratio of less than 1%, this is the response to that claims handling feat?
I want to thank Security First Insurance leader Locke Burt for providing this legislative summary. (The rest of the legislature’s final action is in our Bill Watch in this newsletter.) As many of you know, Locke is a trained lawyer and former Senator. I also want to thank American Integrity Insurance leaders Bob and Jon Ritchie who spent every day during session strategizing on ways to show our legislators ways to craft legislation that would make a difference for consumers. They were relentless in their advocacy with Senate and House leaders. It is so hard to sit in the offices of elected officials and staff who, for whatever reason, refuse to believe that words (in these bills) matter and so much of these words send the wrong signal around the world to reinsurance firms and investors whom we seek to recapitalize the Florida insurance marketplace.
So many of you called and talked me through some of the technicalities of these bills and I am grateful. Most importantly, we must carefully study every section of SB 7052 particularly and govern ourselves accordingly. I am happy to walk you through sections of the bill and strategies to implement and comply.
Standing by for assignments! Up next: Bill Watch and the rest of the disaster insurance and recovery news of the week.
LMA Newsletter of 5-8-23
