Florida Insurance Follies (was: Farmers pulls out of Florida)

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Via bing chat gpt:

Isn’t their slogan… “We know a thing or two, because we’ve seen a thing or two” ?

Looks like they are taking it to heart.

It seems natural that the Homeowners buying public in the great state of Florida are not too happy with the members of the insurance industry.

I saw a Tweet about this earlier today and in a very short lived response, someone said “Actuaries don’t f*** around”, then they removed their response before I could grab it.

afaik, FL changed the laws to make projecting losses easier. shortened claim filing period and disallowed assignment of claims to 3rd parties. so this happens bc…the risk, not just the local claims environment - right?

Another withdrawal from Florida:

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While CAT events have certainly not gotten better, I think it’s really a scapegoat to not have to blame the FL DOI and the litigious nature of the state.

The regulatory climate and claims conditions in Florida suck, but …well, I haven’t heard about mid-year treaties, but the 1/1 property reinsurance market was miserable from a cat-exposed insurer’s perspective.

This is just a guess on my part, but it’s all too easy for me to believe that Farmers and AAA, both already dissatisfied with conditions in Florida, faced the pressure of increased retentions and cession rates, and perhaps with some ugly capital implications illuminated by updates to their ORSA reports, decided they had to pull the plug on their business in the state.

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That’s fair, yes much more the FL legislature than DOI

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Deep, I agree with your statement “that the Homeowners buying public in the great state of Florida are not too happy with the members of the insurance industry,” for a different reason.

In a small and unscientific sample, my impression is that many policyholders with Hurricane Ian claims are extremely unhappy with how long it took to get their claims settled. The big insurance companies have experienced lots of hurricanes and should know by now how to do this quickly. Further, policyholders should not have to hire independent adjusters to negotiate settlement amounts. The insurance industry had an opportunity to display great service in clams handling, and it failed.

I know something about the claim settlement for my condo association, and if it ever gets discussed say at a local CPCU luncheon, the insurance company should be embarrassed.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of fraud in FL, and it takes time to sort out the fraud from the real claims.

People file claims to redo their entire roof instead of repairing it, and not necessarily when the damage was due to a hurricane.

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I have heard of people in FL pushing off roof repairs until the next hurricane.

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Another one bites the dust:

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Florida Man is too lazy to go take pictures for Citizens:

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Yesterday, ‘60 Minutes’ did a piece on claims practices in Florida. The main story focused on 1 smaller carrier, but damn, CBS knows how to make people look like crooks, especially when they are crooks.

The main story was a couple who had a $231,000 hurricane wind claim according to the independent adjuster, and their carrier sent them a check for $9,000.

I felt guilty for the whole industry watching that piece. The consumer advocates that they interviewed just flat out stated that the intent of the insurer is to deny the majority of claims, and let the small percentage who are willing to sue go on to court. They said that it’s cheaper for the industry to pay the court cases than to pay out all the legitimate claims.

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