Florida was ravaged this year by two hurricanes. Hurricane Ian will go down in history as one of the costliest hurricanes to hit Florida in recent time. Thousands of Floridians are still displaced because of this storm. 

Our legislators start special session this Monday December 12th, 2022 and are working to take your rights away. We need to act now! 

OVER 139,850 CLAIMS HAVE BEEN DENIED AND CLOSED WITHOUT PAYMENT SO FAR FROM HURRICANE IAN. 

We need to ensure Florida Homeowners retain the right to hire legal counsel so they have a fair chance in obtaining a fair settlement. Insurance companies are notorious for delaying, denying and underpaying valid claims. 

Insurance companies are sophisticated cash-rich corporations that have endless access to resources. Homeowners are immediately at a disadvantage because they do not have the same resources to be properly represented. By eliminating statutory attorney fees, no one will want to represent the underserved. Instead, attorneys will only represent larger commercial losses and wealthy individuals. Who will represent the homeowner whose claim was wrongfully denied for $15,000? That’s peanuts for an insurance company but a lot of money for a homeowner. 

As the holidays are upon us, we hope the legislature realizes we need to protect the consumers who were affected by the hurricane. 

This bill does nothing to combat inflation, natural disasters and sloppy underwriting by insurance carriers which is the real reason for rising rates. Also, a number of insurer insolvencies are due to mismanagement and natural disasters.

Protect Florida Disaster victims and vote VOTE to SB 2A or strike down the anti-consumer attorney provisions.

Florida political leaders have sold out their constituents in favor of the insurance industry. The bill strips away policyholders’ rights and protections when claims are denied, delayed or underpaid.

Here are some of the things our politicians have been working on with insurance companies without any input from Florida taxpayers:

• Allows insurance companies to force policyholders to mandatory binding arbitration, a dispute resolution process that forbids the policyholder from access to the Courts. This arbitration process is heavily weighted in favor of insurance companies and take away your constitutional right to a jury trial.

• Takes away your right to have your attorney’s fees and costs paid by your insurance company when they wrongfully deny, underpay or delay your claim.

• Creates a $1 billion taxpayer-funded program for insurance companies to bail out insurance companies who have made poor choices. This is in addition to the $2 billion dollar program that was passed a mere 6 months ago.

• Reduces the ability for policyholders to bring “bad faith” claim lawsuits to hold their insurance company accountable for engaging in improper claims handling conduct towards its policyholders.

• Allows insurance companies to electronically investigate and adjust insurance claims. Your insurance company can make a claim determination without ever sending someone to your home to inspect it.

• Reduces the time frame for policyholder to reopen claims to 1 year and to file supplemental claims to 18 months. Basically, policyholders will now have only 18 months to complete repairs to their home or forgo their right to be reimbursed for their damages under their policy.

• Requires homeowners covered by state-run Citizens Property Insurance to pay more for insurance coverage. Everyone with a Citizens policy would have to buy flood insurance, some as soon as April this year. Those with Citizens policies would not be able to renew their coverage if they receive policy offers from private insurers that are within 20% of the cost of the Citizens premiums.

• Changes the burden of proof to make Citizens’ policyholders prove that water damage is from wind damage rather than the burden on the insurer to prove that the flood caused the damage.

What good is insurance if it does not fully and promptly indemnify you when you need it? These proposed bills make it so that Florida taxpayers will have to represent themselves or simply give up if an insurance company denies or underpays a claim because it is uneconomical to get representation, or you may not have access to the Court.

These law changes invite insurance companies to deny, delay and underpay insurance claims. Our elected officials are giving away your rights to insurance companies.

Florida’s special session begins Monday. Call or email your elected officials now and let them know that while consumers are suffering and trying to rebuild from the recent hurricanes they need help and real reform, not gifts to the insurance industry.
 
Here is the website for find your House representative:
https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/findyourrepresentative
 
And here is the website for finding your senator:
https://m.flsenate.gov/senators/find

See Senate Bill SB 2-A filed by Senator Boyd here:
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022A/2A/BillText/Filed/PDF

See House Bill HB 1A filed by Representative Rommel & Lee here:
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022A/1A/BillText/Filed/PDF

Homeowners, please share your insurance company horror stories below and why we need access to be able to fight.