New focus & help
Springtime is bringing the return of insurance villages to Southwest Florida together with added help to streamline Hurricane Ian claim payments and a reminder from regulators, Citizens is breaking from tradition to help some hurricane victims, while saying ‘no thank you’ to mid-term condominium building policies business. It’s all in this week’s Property Insurance News.
Florida Insurance Consumer Advocate Tasha Carter. Courtesy, DFS
Insurance Villages: CFO Jimmy Patronis has announced the Department of Financial Services will hold another insurance village in Southwest Florida sometime in mid-April, with more to come. He is also designating Florida’s Insurance Consumer Advocate Tasha Carter as the Department’s Hurricane Ian Chief Recovery Director to help streamline the Hurricane Ian claims process. Patronis said “the claims process doesn’t close overnight,” but that some “public adjusters, attorneys and managed contractors unfortunately have a business model to bring as many players to the table to sign off before that claim is paid and it’s upsetting to the policyholders.”
OIR Reminder: The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has issued Informational Memoranda OIR-23-02M to all property and casualty insurers to continue to ensure they have all available resources in place to appropriately and swiftly facilitate consumer claims, inform them of regulatory actions regarding the claims handling process. OIR is conducting investigations into company claims handling for Hurricane Ian and to date, reports it has initiated more than 50 market conduct investigations to evaluate aspects of the claims handling process. These investigations are confidential and exempt from public records until the investigation is completed or ceases to be active, per state statute.
Citizens on UPC-Ian Help: Citizens Property Insurance President Tim Cerio announced last week that the state-backed carrier is extending the deadline for UPC Insurance policies to transfer into Citizens from March 29 to April 17. Also, normally most insurance companies won’t take on new business if the dwelling has existing damage. “But due to a contractor shortage in Southwest Florida after Hurricane Ian, I want to announce that we are allowing UPC applicants who have existing damage to their home 90 days to submit a contract to repair the damage,” Cerio told his Board. “We think this is the right thing to do and it can help those still suffering hardship in the aftermath of Ian, which is very important.”
Citizens on Roofs & Condos: Citizens also reports it has deferred the implementation of the wind/hail deductible to focus on the more pressing legislative changes from the December reforms and will suspend any future amendments to its roof age eligibility rules for now. Citizens reports OIR made it remove its previously announced “one-time only” five year policy extension for roofs of 25 years old that pass inspection certifying good condition. Citizens has since removed the one-time limitation while keeping its plan to conduct a roofing inspection itself within the five-period of extension to confirm satisfactory condition.
Citizens will no longer entertain writing commercial lines new business (especially condo buildings) unless the prior policy was in force for a full year, excepting policy cancellations or insurance company insolvency. This is a move to stem the big influx of mid-term policy shopping by agents that Citizens says it’s seeing. This mid-term cancellation rule is not applicable if the prior policy carrier issued a company cancellation (excluding non-payment) or if the prior carrier has been declared insolvent.
Have a great week and call or email us if we can help you navigate Bill Watch or you have other questions. Of course, you are always welcome to stay with us in our home and walk the halls of the Florida Capitol with us!
See you on the trail,
Lisa
LMA Newsletter of 4-3-23
