Brian Malone
Brian Malone is a dear friend and a Bahamian whose immediate family is about to have a horrific experience caused by Hurricane Dorian. Brian’s parents and relatives live in Hope Town on the Abaco Islands which is part of the Bahamas. Category 4 and 5 hurricanes are terrible freaks of nature, but living through 24 hours of it will undoubtedly make an impact on the psyche of his relatives in harm’s way of Dorian. Continue Reading
Hurricane Dorian
Before law school, I worked for nearly two years at the Florida Division of Emergency Management. During major events, I served on the State Emergency Response Team at the emergency operations center in Tallahassee. With Hurricane Dorian projected to impact Florida, I wanted to take a moment to provide you some of the insights that I learned as a former member of Florida’s emergency management team. Continue Reading
One of the most bizarre hurricane stories ever told to me was from a client’s son in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina. While holding on for his life in flood waters, a chihuahua came floating by him on a surfboard. I just have a hard time imagining that but look at the photo above. One of the saddest hurricane stories is the death of twelve seniors at a Florida nursing home following Hurricane Irma. The people responsible for taking care of them are now facing criminal prosecution. Continue Reading
Chip Merlin & Guy Cohen
Public adjuster Guy Cohen and I discussed various issues of property insurance and adjustment at a recent lunch. He raised a very serious topic of coverage gaps being created in the small print of property insurance policies which Florida insurance regulators are allowing to be sold. He thinks that these coverage gaps are the most serious issues facing insurance consumers. He is not alone. Continue Reading
Note: This guest post is by David Thompson, CPCU, AAI, API, CRIS, an instructor at the Florida Association of Insurance Agents for over 23 years. Prior to that he worked in a family-owned insurance agency for over ten years. He was a commissioned officer in the United States Army and the United States Coast Guard for eight years prior to beginning his insurance career. In his spare time, he smokes the world’s best BBQ.
I drive a red four-door car that has a sticker price of about $21,000. A good friend of mine also drives a red four-door car, but his car was over $26,000. Why did he pay more than I did? After all aren’t all red four door cars the same?
The answer to that question is obvious because different cars have different features. The same concept can be used with insurance policies. Not every policy is the same, and price alone should never be a reason to purchase an insurance policy. The homeowners policy on my Tallahassee home is $1,281 per year. I doubt any of my neighbors pay that much and I’m nearly 100 percent certain that no one within miles of my house has a policy with as many coverage enhancements as my policy does. I have (for fun) gone to some websites where you can put in your street address, answer four or five simple questions and pronto, you get a quote. I did that just today and the quote provided in under a minute listed 23 companies; 22 were lower than my current premium with the lowest being $572. By the way, only three questions were asked: zip code, year built, and coverage limit. But, what did that policy include? Was coverage as broad as what I currently have? I assure you that it was not, but too many consumers would look at $1,281 vs. $572 and go with the cheaper quote. A long time “insurance nerd” friend of mine who had over fifty years in the insurance industry when he passed away a few years ago often said, “The bitterness of no coverage is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” Continue Reading
The time is now to button up those flood claims. The deadline for submission of the sworn statement of a Hurricane Michael flood loss, known as the Proof of Loss (‘POL”), is 365 days from the date of loss,1 which is October 10, 2019, for those in the Panhandle of Florida. The POL is the policyholder’s sworn statement for the amount of insurance proceeds requested under the Standard Flood Insurance Policy (“SFIP”). Continue Reading
Florida Insurance Consumer Advocate Tasha Carter
A newspaper article, 10 months After Hurricane Michael, Florida Still Doesn’t Know Why So Many Insurance Claims are Open,1 noted the slow-moving Hurricane Michael insurance claims. The title is telling because it indicates Florida insurance officials do not know why the delays are happening. Continue Reading
Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier
One of the strongest worded notices to insurance companies to pay promptly and do whatever it takes to help policyholders following a disaster came from Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier in a December 19, 2018 memorandum entitled Hurricane Michael Claims Response. Continue Reading
“Not with Hurricane Michael claims” is the answer to these questions being screamed by policyholders, contractors and public adjusters. The blog title and questions were plucked from CJW’s website which also says most adjusters have a difficult time making accurate estimates but CJW does not because their adjusters “work ‘round the clock” to make accurate estimates:
Accuracy: how easy it is to claim (and most adjusters do). How difficult it is to fulfill.
At CJW, high accuracy and precise teamwork are a way of life. From in-depth analysis of the policy to determine the limits of coverage…to daily reviewing of exposures and minimizing the risks of over- or under-reserving. CJW’s seasoned TPA managers will work ’round the clock, if necessary, to make sure all data, files and reports are as close to the mark as is humanly possible.
But then, isn’t that just what you’d expect from masters of the craft?1 Continue Reading
Chip Merlin frequently stresses the importance of reading the whole insurance policy when determining whether there is coverage for the relevant property damage. The failure to do so was highlighted in a recent case,1 where a Pennsylvania federal court stated it could not ignore the specific terms of an insurance policy merely because the insured may not have fully read the policy.
In that case, an insured sued his homeowners insurer, alleging it failed to pay what he perceived as the full estimate of water damage resulting from a broken pipe in his house. While the insured received payment for a twenty-four-foot portion of slab repair to access and replace a drain line under the kitchen floor, he claimed his insurance company’s failure to pay an additional fifteen feet of slab repair to the main drain was a breach of the insurance policy. The insurance policy contained an endorsement requiring the insurance company to pay for repairing only those areas in the house necessary to access the specific defect in the appliance causing the water damage. Nevertheless, the insured contended his insurance company should pay for the additional slab repair, utilizing a sentence of the insurance policy that had been deleted by the endorsement.
The court ultimately ruled that the insured failed to state a claim for breach of the insurance policy because he conceded the endorsement was in effect at the time of the loss. Consequently, the court would not read out the endorsement. Rather, the court was obligated to interpret the policy with the endorsement read into it and, therefore, could not ignore the specific terms of the endorsement because the insured may not have fully read the policy.
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1 Boring V. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., No. 19-1833, 2019 WL 3774191 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 9, 2019).
