Plus, a definitive ruling on liability lawsuits
There’s another round of updated claims numbers to report from Hurricane Ian, the Florida Supreme Court decides an important statute of limitations on insurance lawsuits, plus the Federal Insurance Office weighs-in on how insurance companies are dealing with climate risk. It’s all in this week’s Property Insurance News.
Hurricane Ian Claims: Since our last newsletter of June 26, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has updated the figures on insurance claims from last September’s Hurricane Ian. Total estimated insured losses now total nearly $17.3 billion on 739,771 claims as of June 28 (up from the $16.7 billion on 738,441 reported claims from OIR as of June 16). Of those, 86.1% are closed claims (up a bit from the 85.8% reported previously). There is no OIR update on Hurricane Nicole claims since our last newsletter.
Statute of Repose: The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the statute of limitations and statute of repose on liability lawsuits is indeed within two years of the injury, regardless of whether an insurance company is involved immediately or later in the lawsuit. The case involved a 2014 car accident and pitted a First District Court of Appeal ruling in 2021 against a Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling in 1997. You can read more about the intricacies of this case from William Rabb in the Insurance Journal.
Feds on Climate and Insurance: The Federal Insurance Office (FIO) has released the first of two planned reports on climate-related financial risk on insurance companies. The report analyzes climate issues and gaps in U.S. insurance supervision and regulation. FIO commends initial efforts by some state regulators and the NAIC, but notes that “these efforts are fragmented across states and limited in several critical ways.” FIO encourages state insurance regulators to build on their progress with a list of 20 recommendations in the report.
FIO’s second planned report proposes a data call to collect detailed information from insurance companies to analyze how climate change is affecting the cost and availability of property insurance coverage. The industry and state insurance regulators have objected. US Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Tim Scott (R-SC), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen raising concerns that the data call could result in “state insurance regulators and insurers being coerced into adopting costly, one-size-fits-all climate-mitigation strategies.” Both Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott signed the letter.
LMA Newsletter of 7-10-23
