Posts Tagged ‘Florida’

Citizens Cuts Homeowners Insurance in Florida

November 16th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in homeowners insurance

Citizens Property Insurance customers in Florida will have less coverage available in 2012.

The company, which is run by the state, released a memo to its agents stating that it will be eliminating homeowners insurance coverage for most structures beyond the main residence listed on a policy. Specifically excluded will be car ports, patios, screen porches and pool enclosures that are not constructed from the same materials as the actual residence.

The exclusions don’t end there, however. Citizens is also excluding coverage for gazebos, tiki huts, or any other similar structures likely to be open to the weather, or any structure that has a roof or wall built from lattice, thatching, or similar materials.

Citizens is also instituting a $10,000 cap on cosmetic damage to floors that cover less than five percent of the total square footage of a home.

According to company spokesperson Christine Ashburn, these changes will go into effect on all new and renewal policies on January 1, 2012.

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Mercury General Leaving Florida

February 7th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in homeowners insurance

Mercury General has announced that it is beginning the process of leaving the Florida homeowners insurance market, citing it’s $19 million in losses in the fourth quarter of 2010 as the driving factor.

According to the company, it will be sending the mandatory 180-day advanced notice of it’s “intent not to renew” policies for 8,000 Florida homeowners beginning in March. By the second half of 2012, it expects to be fully withdrawn from the “Sunshine State.”

Spokespeople for Mercury General say that the $19 million loss includes $6 million in reserves set aside for future claims. The company blames many of the losses on sinkholes, which state officials and other insurance companies have also referred to as a major source of insurance costs in Florida.

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Rate Watch: State Farm Requests 27.7% Rate Hike in Florida

February 2nd, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in homeowners insurance, rate watch

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation will be holding a public hearing on February 15th. Why? To discuss the latest rate filing from State Farm, which company is requesting an average increase of 27.7 percent statewide in homeowners insurance rates. The reason, they say, is to offset the rising costs of sinkhole claims. The request is coming just as the Florida legislature is attempting to negotiate how to address the cost of sinkholes, as it prepares for its new legislative season beginning on March 8th.

Chris Neal, a spokesperson for State Farm said that the increase in the insurance company’s non-catastrophe losses, which have increased by 94 percent over the last three years, is one of the key factors that led to the rate request. He said that the vast majority of that increase is because of sinkhole losses. In 2007, for example, the carrier paid out $47 million in sinkhole claims while they paid out more than $119 million in similar claims in just the first three quarters of 2010.

Neal said, “The way things are going we may have to consider sinkholes a catastrophic loss.”

This rate filing is merely the most recent move in a dance that the State of Florida has been doing with State Farm for several years, after a deal was reached to keep the insurer in the state. Two years ago, State Farm threatened to leave Florida entirely, after its request for a 47% increase was rejected. At that time, rather than letting 800,000 policyholders get “dumped,” the state regulators agreed to a deal allowing the insurer to drop 125,000 customers, reduce or eliminate certain discounts, and increase rates by 14.8 percent.

That agreement, said Neal, helped State Farm stabilize its finances. “It gave us some rate relief and allowed us a way to manage our expenses that was critical at the time,” he said.

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Florida Says Latest $25 million from BP Not Enough

June 11th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists, world events

The state of Florida, the Insurance Journal reports, is unhappy with BP. Again. The troubled oil company brought $25 million more to Florida on Tuesday, but the reaction was not gratitude, but criticism.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist and three independently elected Cabinet members asked for more money from BP, and demanded it swiftly in order to help residents of their state recover business losses caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill which has been rapidly encroaching upon the Sunshine State’s coastline. The informed Bob Fryar, BP senior vice president, that time is of the essence, because thousands of local businesses are on the brink of failure.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink told Fryar, “I don’t think speed is in your vocabulary yet. People are just trying to survive.”

Governor Crist, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat as an independent, asked BP for more of everything: booms and skimmers to clean up slicks and sheen, money for cleanup, money for advertising, and claims offices in every coastal county in his state. “We demand it,” he said. “You’re a company with enormous resources.”

The most recent $25 million infusion from BP was targeted toward Florida’s costs of responding to the spill, and brings the total monies the state has already received from the company to $75 million. Before Tuesday’s meeting, Florida had already requested another $125 million.

Fryar, a petroleum engineer with 25 years of tenure at the London-based BP responded, saying, “We’re trying to make sure people with legitimate claims will be paid quickly. BP will pay all legitimate claims.”
He also said that BP had paid 18,500 of the 38,000 claims received to date.

The spill from the Deepwater Horizon explosion nearly two months ago in the Gulf of Mexico has threatened the tourism, fishing and hospitality industries in Florida. Tar balls washing ashore in the extreme western Florida Panhandle are also causing tourists to be dubious about the state as a wise choice of vacation destination this year.

Both Sink and Crist urged Fryar to have BP officials visit businesses hurt by the expanding spill.

“It’s no fun watching grown men cry,” Sink said. “That’s what I’ve seen.”

Attorney General Bill McCollum, who, like Sink, is hoping to succeed Crist as Florida’s governor in November, had very few positive remarks about BP’s handling of the crisis. “I don’t think you’ve done enough,” McCollum chastised the oil company. “There’s got to be more that you can be doing.”

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