An Orlando area client who filed what they thought was a simple property insurance claim for water damage to their home found them forced out of their home since September of last year due to mistakes made by the “preferred vendors” of their insurance company and the insurance company’s refusal to take responsibility for the situation.  Tutwiler Public Insurance Adjuster Brad Barrett  was eventually brought into the situation late and has been trying to bring the situation to what is called Appraisal, where an Umpire can hopefully rule in the client’s favor.

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.

Since October of 2013 our office has been cranking out claim packages for all of our clients so they fully comply with the terms and conditions of their flood policies.  One of those tasks is the filing of the Proof of Loss, which to the layman can be as complex as building a house with no construction experience.  

For a third time, FEMA has extended the deadline for filing Superstorm Sandy NFIP flood policy claims, 6 months to October 29, 2014. This is allowing policyholders who have supplemental claims or who have had repairs delayed due to code issues or other situations to gather the proper documentation.

As the 2014 Florida Legislative Session enters its final week, once again there are insurance industry backed proposals that will impact public adjusters and their ability to advocate for the policyholder. A purposed amendment was added to a bill in the house this past week seeking to limit the rates public adjusters can charge for their services……something that was debated by this same group last year.

As we approach the midpoint for this year’s legislative session in Tallahassee, things are not looking good for a key piece of legislation championed by Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Atwater.  Briefly, his push for a policyholder’s “Bill of Rights” came out of a number of formal meetings chaired by the then DFS consumer advocate.  The meetings were held by an eclectic group of stakeholders who had an interest in the adjusting process ostensibly to air issues that policyholders were complaining about following a loss.

The latest Journal of Public Adjusting, Volume 4 Issue 2, prompted this blog.  Appeal Efforts Results in Unfavorable Ruling for Dominick Belinchak highlights the long and I assume costly battle Mr. Belinchak, (a licensed public adjuster) has waged with the Florida Department of Financial Services over the issue of the “undefined term of direct supervision” of a public adjuster apprentice.

Our congratulations go out to public adjuster Frank Fortson who we are proud to part of the Tutwiler group. Frank was recently featured on WPTV News in West Palm Beach related to a duplex fire that caused smoke damage to the family’s residence. What would seem like an obvious claim to most people was surprisingly being disputed. 

We encourage you to watch the video so you can see what we find so rewarding about helping home and business owners with their property insurance claims.

If you have questions regarding any property insurance claim related issues please call 800.321.4488 or contact us to submit a question to one of our public adjuster or insurance claim experts.

Reporter Andrea Senior of WTSP TV in Tampa recently did a story Single Mom Battles Insurance Co. After Fire on one of our clients who had filed a fire claim with St. John’s Insurance.  It’s unfortunate the media found this newsworthy, but the facts supporting the case and how this was impacting the family right before the Christmas holidays caught their attention.

Citizens floats a sinkhole fix was the headline in the Tampa Bay Times article that ran in the paper on 12/11/2013.

The article says letters will go out to “current and potentially future litigants this week that offered to pay for repairs.”  This program, which we reported on in one of our previous blogs, has been in the works for some time when it was passed out of a Citizens claim committee and sent to the full board for approval.  So based on the Times article, Citizens’ board must have approved it.