The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates®

Hurricane Michael struck Florida’s panhandle in October 2018 as a strong Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 155 miles per hour.  At least 29 people in Florida died in the storm or its aftermath and another 10 people in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, as of this recording.  Beyond the cost in human lives, is the cost of rebuilding homes, businesses, and infrastructure.  Estimates of i...

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller was interviewed by Tom Flanigan on WFSU-FM, National Public Radio for Florida, just hours before Hurricane Michael made landfall on the Florida panhandle.  She shared with listeners the importance of staying safe prior to and during the storm, how to handle any damage and prepare an insurance claim, and the best methods for filing claims.  T...

It’s an insurance agent – it’s an adjuster – it’s an underwriter – no, it’s an Insurance Nerd!  In an industry that sometimes screams boring and is full of complex, technical jargon, comes a refreshing team of veteran insurance professionals that are out to change that. Their goal: to engage younger people considering different career paths and show them that insurance can be fun and personally sa...

The real estate market and the insurance market are intertwined – in fact, “property” is literally the first word in property & casualty insurance.  Both are highly value-based, as higher property values require higher insurance premiums to provide adequate coverage.  But there’s a bigger picture: the connection between real estate and promoting investment and job creation, where property sale...

The emerging distributed ledger software technology Blockchain, being developed for use in financial transactions, has applications in how we manage insurance information, too.  It could one day be used to reduce Florida’s nearly 27% rate of uninsured drivers – the highest in the nation – while providing added convenience and money-saving efficiencies to both consumers and insurance companies.  Bl...

The aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shooting and other major casualty events can greatly impact the insurance companies that provide liability policies to schools, hotels, and other venues.  While these policies traditionally cover a variety of more ordinary events, some policies never contemplated – and priced the risk for – the increasingly unusual catastrophic events seen over the las...

Congress is pushing into 2018 a decision on how to reform the beleaguered National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that 1.8 million Floridians depend on for their property flood protection. Congress must reauthorize the program as well, because without it, federally-backed home mortgages which require flood coverage for high-risk zoned properties could come to a standstill.  But the taxpayer-subsid...

Florida homeowners, businesses, and other property owners have been assessing the damage from Hurricane Irma and begun filing claims with their insurance companies.  Those claims are expected to number in the hundreds of thousands from the first major hurricane to hit Florida in 12 years.  How are insurance companies responding?  How will they be able to meet the challenges of such an onslaught of...

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation recently approved two first-of-their-kind programs designed to help the state’s property insurer of last resort – Citizens Property Insurance Corporation – control the rapidly rising claims and litigation costs among its current 450,000 policyholders.  Citizens will now be able to limit coverage on non-weather water claims to $10,000 unless the policyhold...

Aided by new state legislation this year designed to encourage a robust private flood insurance market in Florida, the number of companies writing flood policies has nearly doubled in the last year, while Congress works this summer to reform the federal government’s beleaguered National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).  Meanwhile, new technology is making structures more resilient than ever to floo...

Just in time for the start of hurricane season, the Florida Legislature has made it even easier for private insurance companies to write flood coverage in the Sunshine State.  The private market is seen as a much-needed alternative to the debt-ridden, increasingly expensive, federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).   Even more so for Florida consumers, who are largely subsidiz...

The Florida Legislature ended its 2017 session this week three days late – and without passing most of the major insurance-related bills.  These include Assignment of Benefits reform, Workers’ Compensation reform as mandated by the state Supreme Court, and No-Fault Personal Injury Protection automobile insurance reform.  What went wrong?  Host Lisa Miller, a former Florida deputy insurance commiss...

The Florida Legislature is once again trying to decide what to do with the state's 45 year-old No-Fault Automobile Insurance coverage law – more specifically, how to handle the persistent fraud that keeps increasing and with it, automobile insurance rates.  But one component that's rarely talked about is the Bad Faith doctrine - and the third-party vendors some say who are manipulating it to win b...

They come to your house peddling offers of a free roof, courtesy of your insurance company.  Regardless of whether you’ve suffered serious enough storm damage to warrant a total roof replacement, these scam artists have you sign an “AOB”– an Assignment of Benefits – that takes away your rights and benefits of insurance claims proceeds and puts it into their pockets.  That’s what happened to Kellie...

Although Florida accounts for nearly 40% of the National Flood Insurance Program policies, it remains a huge donor state to this federal monopoly, with property owners here paying $4 in premiums for every $1 in claims received. Maria Wells, President of Florida Realtors, has been a driving force behind efforts to encourage a private flood market in the Sunshine State. Ms. Wells shares her advocacy...