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Remember how the Florida insurance industry and its lobbyists promised that if AOB reform were passed, insurance rates would drop because AOB litigation was the cause of increased premiums? Since that law passed, rates have not dropped. Floridians were duped by insurance industry propaganda, and the same insurance industry is promoting more anti-policyholder laws that literally prevent Citizens Property Insurance from asking for a rate decrease—and some Florida legislators voted yesterday to make it against the law for Citizens Property to ask for a rate decrease!…
Continue Reading Do Not Believe Florida’s Insurance Industry That Laws Will Reduce Rates When Rates Often Depend Upon Mother Nature and Reinsurance Rates

An Extended Replacement Cost (“ERC”) endorsement1 can be added to a policy to increase the stated limits for your dwelling/building and potentially other structures.2 In homeowners policies, this endorsement most commonly increases the stated limits 25-50%.3 The ERC endorsement is most often found in policies of property owners in areas prone to widespread natural disasters.…
Continue Reading Extended Replacement Cost Coverage: A Safeguard Against Demand Surge

I will be in Tallahassee today providing testimony regarding property insurance claims legislation. It seems that every year the Florida insurance industry makes up a crisis which calls for Florida legislators to fix. Remember how the AOB reform was promised to reduce rates and had to be passed? The legislation was passed and the insurance rates have not gone down. Why should anybody trust the insurance lobbyists? Insurance companies try to act like victims when they are making up alleged scapegoats and obscuring the reality of what they do in the claims process.…
Continue Reading Zeroed Out Hurricane Claims and Cheating Claims Practices—Why Are Our Florida Politicians Ignoring These Ongoing Claims Problems and Seemingly Protecting Cheating Insurance Companies?

A federal judge in California handed down an entertaining read of an opinion last week. Although it addresses liability insurance the principles apply to property insurance all the same. The case is Northfield Insurance Company v. Tilted Turtle.1 It presents a cautionary tale for what happens when an insured makes a misrepresentation to their insurer, and what happens when a judge slams the gavel on absurd legal defenses.…
Continue Reading A Series of Unfortunate Events for Tilted Turtle Bar & Grill Leads to Rescission of Policy

Like many people, I cannot remember the last time I paid for a dinner out, bought a new pair of pants, or paid an electric bill with cash or a check. When I am not working on behalf of policy holders, I like to travel, so I pay for everything I can by credit card to earn travel miles. For a business owner to get paid from my credit card transaction, they must enter into agreements with a third-party servicer to facilitate the processing of credit card transactions. To complete these transactions, the third-party servicers also have separate agreements with credit card associations, like MasterCard and Visa. MasterCard or Visa have rules that may obligate the business owner to pay additional fees and assessments in the event of a data breach in order to keep accepting credit cards.…
Continue Reading Cybersecurity Insurance: Credit Card Data Breaches Come with Extra Costs that May Not be Covered

Have you ever read an insurance company advertisement saying that it is going to potentially treat their own customer’s insurance claim with a marring protocol or technical claims directive such as the one I published yesterday in, The Marring Protocol and Other Unfair Methods to Underpay Florida Policyholders? Of course not. Most insurance companies promise prompt, quick, easy, and fast payments with the best claims service in the industry.…
Continue Reading Insurance Company Advertisements and Promises of Peace of Mind Versus the Reality of Claims Treatment

Stone Creek Condominium Owners Association, Inc. (“Stone Creek”),1 suffered a hail loss in 2016 for which it submitted a claim to its property insurance carrier, Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company (“Charter”). Charter inspected and issued payment in accordance with its estimate. Charter determined that four of the twenty buildings had sustained damage, although no damage was noted to any of the roofs.…
Continue Reading Jury to Decide if Adjuster’s Instruction to Insured Waived Date of Loss