DeSantis signs property insurance bill
Critics attack legislation as gift to insurers
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a property insurance bill last week which he said will make the state more welcoming for insurance companies but which critics said would be detrimental to property owners.
The controversial legislation was passed during a special session that convened last week.
Appearing at a press conference on Fort Myers Beach Friday, DeSantis said “this is an issue that has been roiling this state for decades.”
DeSantis pointed to language in the legislation which would restrict the fees that lawyers can collect on property insurance litigation.
DeSantis said that when “the big insurers kind of left… 15 years ago, 10 years ago, these smaller companies, the hope was they would do well. (Hurricane) Irma came and the claims just kept happening. A lot of litigation so you had really significant turmoil that developed — not in the immediate aftermath of Irma but two to three years down the line.”
DeSantis said property insurance was a challenging issue for Florida.
“What is the root cause of that? I think most people that look at it honestly will say that Florida’s burdens of litigation and attorneys making so much money is different than what most other states are doing and it caused massive amounts of (rate) increases,” he said.
“There is consumer protections, there is a bunch of stuff in there,” De-Santis said.
DeSantis said the bill would create more competition.
“The best thing for a consumer is that if you can go out and make people compete for your business. If they have to do that, they are going to give you better customer service, they are going to give you better rates. They are going to do all that.”
DeSantis said “so many companies have kind of been pushed out of Florida over the last generation, you are basically stuck with maybe one option. Then they have no incentive to give you competitive rates and no incentive to even do a good job on customer service.”
Critics have derided the legislation for making it easier for Citizens Property Insurance Co., the state-backed insurance company, to push more policy holders off to private companies where rates can be higher.
The bill would move policyholders who receive property insurance rate offers within 20% of the rates offered by Citizens Property Insurance Co. The previous percentage was 10%.
All of the region’s local Republican state representatives voted in favor of the legislation. Democrats in the state legislature voted against the bill.
Florida Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book (D-35) said the “so-called reforms are not going to help anyone except the large insurance companies. The Republican leadership has bowed to the insurance interests and did nothing to lower the cost of homeowners insurance. As a result, Floridians are going to be hurt by these actions.”
Book said, “Senate Democrats will continue the fight for a balanced approach to give homeowners the relief they deserve along with the ability to resolve disagreements without clogging the courts and without incurring enormous personal costs.”
Book said the legislature had “a real opportunity to help regular homeowners and today the GOP-led Florida legislature failed in that mission.”
Florida Sen. Lori Berman (D-26) said the legislation will make it more difficult for property owners to sue insurance companies by taking away one-way attorney fees, known as assignment of benefit claims.
“I’m not sure it will help consumers,” Berman said. “It will make it more difficult to bring lawsuits and those property owners will have to pay attorney fees out of pocket rather than the insurance companies paying attorney fees when they lose cases over denials, delays and underpayments.”
Berman said the legislature provided $1 billion to insurance companies in the latest round of legislation, following the approval of a $2 billion bill in May.
“We have seen little impact (on rates),” she said.
Berman said the legislature had asked for a report from the state insurance commissioner’s office on how much of property rate increases were due to litigation, as DeSantis and others in Republican leadership have alleged. Berman said legislators were told that report wouldn’t be ready until March.
“We didn’t have the backup data to support that,” Berman said.
“Is (the rate of property insurance in Florida) high because of climate change? Is it high because of excessive compensation to their leadership team?”
Following the legislature’s passage of the bill, the state’s insurance commissioner David Altmaier announced he would resign Dec. 28.
To reach NATHAN MAYBERG, please email nmayberg@breezenewspapers