Several significant milestones recently passed, so I thought I would share a few of them with you.

Most importantly is the adjournment of the 2014 Florida Legislative Session. As the old saying goes, no one is safe when the legislature is in session! While it was predicted, not much earthshaking legislation passed, given the upcoming fall election cycle. That proved to be mostly true with at least insurance issues. One of the exceptions was Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s success in getting the Policyholder Bill of Rights legislation passed.  From my perspective it will be interesting to see what the actual “Bill of Rights” says and how this program will actually be implemented. This bill was necessary because policyholders have in the past flooded the phone lines at the Department of Financial Services (DFS) following losses to Floridians’ property from fire and storm events. It seems they were lost and confused in dealing with insurance adjustment issues. That’s not surprising to me given the complexity of property insurance claims and adjustment issues that arise. Thus, according to Chief Financial Atwater, the Bill of Rights will supposedly provide some insight to the policyholder about their rights and the claim process. Let’s hope it works, but loss adjustment is a very complex process that requires knowledge as well as a deep institutional understanding of the process, all at a very stressful time.

As usual, no legislative session would be complete without someone dragging the public adjusting profession yet again through the halls of the legislature.  My take on this is, good grief don’t you think Florida has enough major problems that need legislative attention besides visiting the fees issue again that were debated and agreed to last year? Apparently not, fees that public adjusters charge that were approved in last year’s legislative session were again on the table for a short while. This year a bill was drafted attempting to strike last year’s law with more new rules on fees.  It even had an amendment sponsored by a small group of disenfranchised public adjusters (who supported last year’s fee cap) push to debate it again. Thankfully, Senator Joe Negron got it right.  What a relief to see a real professional get it right. I hope this gentleman has aspirations for a higher political office as it would be refreshing to see his thinking in grid locked Washington.

I wonder what lawyers, accountants, contractors, engineers, insurance agents and brokers, independent adjusters, and salaried insurance company staff and many other professions in the property insurance claim process, (all of which have no fee caps that I am aware of) would do if each year the legislature drafted bills to impose some fee cap on their profession. I think what we have here is a little (or a lot) of discrimination going on when it comes to the public adjusting profession. Restraint of trade also comes to mind. We will see, this type of activity is very un-American and our country has a long and proud history of standing up for free enterprise and principles of fairness and fighting discrimination no matter what its form.

Finally, it was a pleasure and honor to have served with a distinguished panel at the recent Windstorm Insurance Network Inc. regional conference held on May 9^th in Newark, NJ. The general session panel topic was High Value Complex Claims: A Difference in Kind and Degree.   Our panel of experts was moderated by attorney Janet Brown who did an excellent job fielding questions from the audience and keeping the focus on Super Storm Sandy adjusting issues. My firm also served as a workshop presenter for Ethics &Professionalism for Adjusters. CE credits were awarded to all that attended for the states they were licensed in. 

In closing, I will return to the start of the conference where I was honored to make the introduction of the conference’s keynote speaker, Ms. Heather Abbott, a Boston Marathon survivor and amputee. Ms. Abbott could not have been a better choice for a Super Storm Sandy Conference as she has shown through her story of loss, struggle, recovery, renewal, and finally giving back to others that the most difficult obstacles in life can be overcome. Ms. Abbott was a very inspiring lady who humbled a conference hall of attendee’s.      

Stay safe and remember, despite this year’s predictions of a below average storm season, it only takes one storm to make the infamous list of retired hurricane names.