I received notice that Citizens, the State run insurance company has proposed some changes to their property policy as it relates to the resolution dispute forum called appraisal. The appraisal process has for years been offered universally by most insurance companies as a cost effective way to resolve disputes with policyholders involving damages to their property from a covered loss.
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An article in the 2015 autumn edition of the Marshall University Magazine (my alma mater) resonated with me in the context of insurance losses. In theory there should not be any winners or losers when it comes to paying for an insured policyholder’s claim. The insurance company is supposed to indemnify their insured or make them whole, as in putting them back in the place they were before the loss.
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When involved with complex insurance claims (believe me, nowadays with all these new forms and restrictions, they are all complex and controversial), the policy language and the facts of the loss all must be taken into account to apply them to the coverage in order to get the correct payment to the policyholder.  But this may only be the beginning of what you need to know. Other issues face the adjuster which may be outside of your typical daily sphere of experience and knowledge.
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I read with a great deal of interest comments that were made by the big chiefs at a hearing held by the Office of Insurance Regulation in Tallahassee concerning the rate request Citizens Insurance Company was asking for in the South Florida market. In my view the back-and-forth discussion that took place on August 25 is newsworthy as are some of the back-story items not covered or published. Here is a link from the Insurance Journal that reported on the August 25^th hearing. 

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Well, maybe not new, but things are changing and we have seen this coming for some time. In our last blog Tampa Bay Residents Wait on FEMA we noted that staff from FEMA were in the area to inspect the flooding that resulted from three weeks of intense rain. Attempting not to jinx the process, I held off offering my opinion on the likely outcome of the FEMA inspection. But now we know FEMA has turned down requests from State and local officials to provide financial assistance to homeowners and businesses damaged due to the flooding.

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As we continue to help our clients who experienced winter storm damage, settle their insurance claims, we are learning more and more about insurance company claim practices and procedures, some which is quite troubling. This winter in the northeast, we endured some grueling battles with insurance companies which I will detail below. No doubt, insurance is a for-profit business and no business likes to lose money.  We also understand that one can’t generalize one company’s behavior to all insurance companies as they all have their own standards of practice. And like other public adjusters in our industry, there are good apples and there are a few bad that can taint the entire profession. 
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A few years ago I was invited to speak at a conference of insurance professionals in Rhode Island.  My topic was surplus lines insurance which at that time was a very hot topic, at least in Florida as there was a pending Florida Supreme Court case that had it turned out different, could have changed the surplus market insurance scheme in a big way.  As it turned out due to the Court’s ruling, the surplus lines carriers preserved their unique market position and the world in this insurance community did not stop or even wobble. Having been retained recently on a couple of large commercial fire losses and getting reacquainted with some of the nuances of surplus lines, I thought now would be a good time to revisit this unique line of coverage with a couple of case studies that hopefully will shed light on some of the practical problems for policyholders if they happen to be insured by a surplus lines carrier.

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It may be no surprise that not a lot of bills were filed in this year’s legislative session to correct any real or imagined property insurance crises and those that were, died in various committees.   After all, we are fast approaching a decade of no major hurricane strikes that some are saying is a record going back over hundred years! The sitting duck we were supposed to be is looking more like a stuffed bird hung on the wall. Yes, I know it only takes one, but let’s hope the good times continue to roll. There is too much at stake to see Florida or any of our coastal neighbors hit with the big one in this year’s 2015 Atlantic hurricane season just as we are in full recovery mode from the great recession.

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For those of us who are insiders in the Florida claim adjusting business, the AOB issue has been the hot topic with a whole host of folks calling for its demise. I had previously written about this insurance claim scheme and the response to my blog was amazing. Seems no one likes the assignment of benefit except for some of the folks in the restoration business and of course a hand full of lawyers who have discovered a new opportunity to collect attorney fees. 

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After a scathing report about engineering fraud on 60 Minutes, it looks like FEMA is going to allow policyholders the ability to reopen all Superstorm Sandy insurance claims per a NPR report. As a licensed public insurance adjuster who represents policyholders and handled Sandy flood claims, it would be helpful to understood that the NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) sets their own very rigorous and draconian adjusting practice that have lead to the situation we have here. As an example, NFIP will not allow for any discussion on the scope of the loss other than what their adjusters says was flood damaged. If there is a disagreement, then the dispute resolution process in the flood policy called appraisal cannot be used to determine scope issues, only price.

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