PIA of Florida Summarizes Tallahassee Legislation; One Week Until Finale

The Professional Insurance Agents of Florida reports from Tallahassee that with the end of the Florida Legislature’s spring sessions only a week away, legislators are beginning to realize that time is of the essence — PIA predicts they will wait until the last two days to vote on pending insurance bills. Legislators could call for an extension or a special session if they don’t finish up on time, but according to PIA this isn’t very likely.

PIA reports its hard work has been rewarded: PIA is now officially mentioned in SB 2294 and HB 1295. A part of this important property bill, if it passes, creates a Market Accountability Advisory Committee, on which PIA will have a seat. This committee will advise Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s Board of Governors how its actions affect the private insurance market. This may seem like a small victory, but it’s important, since many of the Citizens board members are not in the insurance profession.

Also related to the Citizens’ board, its membership will change if the bill passes and instead of having Tom Gallagher, Florida CFO appoint all board members, he will have to share in this task with the Speaker of the House, the governor and Senate president, each of whom get two appointments.

The $1 million cap on Citizens’ policies has been removed from the bills; however, the Citizens Board of Governors still has the prerogative by rule to keep that cap in place. PIA’s position is that it’s a very good thing that the cap was removed from the bill, because the Citizens’ board can institute, change, or remove a cap to reflect market conditions.

The most debated insurance issue by far this session is the question of the valued-policy law and the recent Mierzwa court decision—and the Legislature is far from agreeing what could ultimately become law. The Mierzwa decision determined that even though a combination of flooding and wind destroyed the Mierzwa’s Fort Lauderdale home, their wind carrier was required to pay the full insured amount. For more on the Mierzwa decision.

Right now, the valued-policy provision has been removed in the House’s bill and isn’t even mentioned in the Senate version. But as it stands now with the House bill, insurance companies are only responsible for covered perils as determined by an adjuster. The insurance committee chairs, Rep. Dennis Ross, L-Lakeland, and Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, both promised the provision in the House bill will not be retroactive and as such, will not affect current court cases, many of which are Hurricane Ivan flood and wind victims.

The debate will continue this week and the Speaker of the House, Gov. Jeb Bush, insurance committee chairs and the Senate president are all expected to take part in this lively debate.

The agency licensing bill (SB 1912 and HB 0591) is progressing nicely, with a positive change for agents: If an agent receives a fee for the sale of a policy, the agent isn’t forced to disclose that fee as a commission.

In the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association bill (SB 2184 and HB 1451), the committee deleted the provision of an additional $200,000 cap in claims to the structure and contents only, so now the old maximum cap of $300,000 per covered claim remains.

Topics Florida Legislation