Florida’s market instability continues
Another Florida property insurance company has decided not to renew thousands of policies, a public adjuster accused of repeatedly violating the state insurance code may lose his license, plus why we’re watching a potential special session in Louisiana. It’s all in this week’s Property Insurance News.
Policy Nonrenewals: Castle Key Insurance, part of the Allstate Insurance Group, submitted a letter to state regulators with its intent to non-renew approximately 33,000 Florida condominium policies. The filing is marked as trade secret so details are few. But an insurance agency bulletin says the notice of intent was submitted on January 11. “If approved, we will provide impacted customers with the requisite 120-day notice of nonrenewal action as required. The timeline to non-renew all items is tentatively set from June 2023 to June 2024,” read the bulletin. These type of policies are relatively low premium, so this is a significant indication of Allstate’s view of the still perilous Florida marketplace. Last June, Allstate suspended writing all new Florida condominium business.
Public Adjuster Targeted by DFS: Last March we reported on Scott David Thomas, an all-lines adjuster and president of Indemnity Public Adjusters of Weston. The Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) at the time filed an administrative complaint outlining a pattern of harassing and stonewalling insurance company adjusters, including blocking access to properties. This past summer the case went before an administrative law judge and now DFS has submitted a proposed order, asking the judge to permanently revoke his adjusting license.
Louisiana Special Session: The Louisiana Legislature may be holding a special session of its own to tackle insurance market problems similar to those in Florida. Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon is among those pushing for a special session that would feature $45 million for a new incentive program to bring new companies into the state to write homeowners policies. All eyes in Florida are following Louisiana given that it’s a direct competitor for needed reinsurance.
Insurance Commissioner: We are still awaiting word on the formal start of the search for a new Florida insurance commissioner, following the December 28 resignation of David Altmaier. The Governor and Cabinet met last week but focused instead on opening the application period for the Executive Director of the State Board of Administration, who among other duties, manages the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and the state pension system. OIR General Counsel Anoush Brangaccio is serving as Commissioner Designee in the meantime.
OIR News: The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has announced its first Data Call on Personal and Commercial Residential Property Claims Litigation Reporting. The data call is required under Senate Bill 76 (s. 624.424(11), F.S.) part of the 2021 property insurance reforms. Companies are now required to report their residential property claims litigation data to OIR annually to help regulators and policymakers better assess the volume and severity of such claims in the Florida market. This data call covers all calendar year 2022 litigation and the filing deadline is March 1. The data template is available here.
In other news, OIR has provided a Notice of Excessive Profit to two automobile insurance companies, AXA Insurance and the United Fire and Casualty, Addison Insurance, and United Fire & Indemnity companies. Under Florida law, property and casualty insurance companies are limited in the underwriting profit they make, based on their annual rate filings. A company that exceeds that may be ordered to return the excess profit to OIR but may contest the order. Under Rule 69O-170.003, OIR annually establishes underwriting profit and contingency factors that may be used in rate filings when a company is unable to produce credible factors from its own data. OIR’s last such notice of established factors on its website was in 2017.
LMA Newsletter of 1-23-23
