It was not the purpose of the 2023 Florida Legislature to lower insurance rates. The insurance rates paid by Florida homeowners are still the highest in the United States.
The 2023 changes were crafted for the insurance industry by the insurance industry. It's going to take time for Florida consumers to be aware of positive results in their homeowner's insurance rates, the Florida Insurance Commissioner has testified.[1] The Chair of the Florida Senate Banking & Insurance Committee has testified to much the same:
The full positive impacts of our efforts will take time to be fully experienced and felt by our constituents.[2]
In other words, rates were not on the legislators' minds in 2023. Something else caught their focus. Not insurance rates, and certainly not homeowner's insurance rates, but something the insurance companies called "lawsuit abuse."
In 2023 the Florida Legislature focused on "HB 837, a sweeping tort measure" which the Florida Bar News reported that "the insurance industry said was needed to combat 'lawsuit abuse.'"[3] More precisely, the "sweeping tort measure" which was the focus of the 2023 Florida Legislature more than homeowner's insurance rates, was a Committee Substitute for a Committee Substitute for House Bill 837.
Only one of the more celebrated statutory changes affected homeowner's insurance and that was a change that affected all types of insurance in Florida: repealing the availability of attorney's fees in the event of prevailing in a dispute with an insurance company over coverage or over the amount of benefits due under an insurance policy.
TO BE CONTINUED ....
[1] Testimony of Hon. Michael Yaworsky, Florida Insurance Commissioner, to the Florida Senate Banking & Insurance Committee, Oct. 10, 2023, quoted in Jim Ash, More Insurance-Related Litigation Reform Bills Unlikely This Session, 50 FLA. B. NEWS, November 2023, at 9. The Insurance Commissioner's testimony was supported by testimony from the Hon. Tim Cerio, CEO of "Citizens, the state-run property insurer of last resort." November 2023 Florida Bar News Insurance-Related Litigation Reform Bills article, supra, at 9, quoting Hon. Tim Cerio.
[2] Florida Senate Banking & Insurance Committee Chair Jim Boyd, Oct. 10, 2023, quoted in November 2023 Florida Bar News Insurance-Related Litigation Reform Bills article, supra, at 1.
[3] November 2023 Florida Bar News Insurance-Related Litigation Reform Bills article, supra, at 9.
The changes to Florida Insurance Law and particularly to Florida Insurance Bad Faith Law are brought to light -- and highlighted -- in Volumes 1 and 2 of DENNIS J. WALL, LITIGATION AND PREVENTION OF INSURER BAD FAITH (West Publishing Company 3d Edition and 2023 Supplements), especially in Chapters 3, 5, 9, and 11. Many of the different and voluminous 2023 Florida Insurance Law changes are also hauled into the sunlight in the forthcoming editions of CATASTROPHE CLAIMS: INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR NATURAL AND MAN-MADE DISASTERS, and Insurance Litigation Reporter.
Please read the disclaimer. This blog article ©2023 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
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