The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates

What’s going on with property insurance in Florida?  Specifically rates, coverage, condominiums, automobile insurance, telematics, flood insurance, and the reinsurance costs that carriers pass along to consumers.  

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller gets to the heart of the issues with three experienced insurance agents in South, Central, and North Florida who share their insights and suggestions on improving Florida’s challenging property insurance market. 

Show Notes 

Host Lisa Miller and guests discussed the high premiums affecting homeowners and auto insurance, driven by catastrophic weather, inflation, litigation, and reinsurance costs.  Positive trends such as rate decreases and more flexible coverage options are highlighted.  The conversation also covered the critical need for flood insurance and the role of the news media in educating the public about insurance complexities and how agents can help the media do so.  The episode underscores the importance of transparency and proactive communication in the industry.

Miller’s guests each brought unique perspectives from different regions of Florida:

Overview of the Florida Insurance Market

Host Miller highlighted the current state of the Florida insurance market, where premiums for automobile, homeowners, and commercial insurance are at an all-time high.  She identified four main factors driving these rates:

Host Miller emphasized the uncertainty surrounding reinsurance costs, especially with the ongoing hurricane season, and the potential for higher rates if a significant hurricane occurs.

Positive Trends in Homeowners Insurance

Rate Decreases and Stabilization

Host Miller highlighted a recent report from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation that 12 companies have requested rate decreases, while 25 have sought to maintain their current rates. For example, American Integrity Insurance Company has announced a nearly 7% rate decrease for a significant number of policyholders...  (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-52-agent-roundtable/) 

High-risk flood zones are expanding this year along significant stretches of Florida’s coastline.  In Broward County, nearly 90,000 properties have been moved into a FEMA flood zone.  But 80,000 of them were in such a zone prior to ten years ago, when FEMA moved them out – only to add them back in this year.  Many will now have to purchase flood insurance.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller talks with the county floodplain manager for an explanation, the reporter who broke the story, and another reporter from Palm Beach County, which is fighting FEMA’s efforts to expand flood zones. 

Show Notes 

FEMA calls these high-risk flood zones Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA).  They are designated on a FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map as zones that begin with the letter “A” or the letter “V” for those living along the coast, subject to additional threat of storm surge.  Properties in these zones supposedly have a 1% probability of flooding each year, or about a one-in-four chance every 25-30 years.  Some refer to this as the 1-in-100-year flood probability.

FEMA’s 2024 updated maps have moved nearly 90,000 (88,913) properties in Broward County, Florida into a high-risk flood zone.  But almost 80,000 (79,689) were in that zone prior to FEMA’s 2014 map update, then removed, and now 10 years later are back in a flood zone.  “How did this happen and what’s the science behind it?” asked host Miller.

Carlos Adorisio, Floodplain Manager for the unincorporated area of Broward County, explained that FEMA flood maps are based on studies of two factors: rainfall and coastal storm surge.  Maps from the 1980’s and 1990’s reflected most of the county was high-risk.  “In 2014, FEMA updated the maps, but they only updated the portion for the rainfall risk and not for the storm surge.  There was a lot of development and better modeling and a lot of areas were removed from the 100-year floodplain,” he explained.   In its 2024 maps, FEMA updated only the coastal storm surge risk.  “There’s been more development, updated storm data, and better computer modeling techniques and mapping,” since the last storm surge studies done in the 1980’s, said Adorisio, who is a Professional Engineer and a Certified Floodplain Manager.  

“One of the components of storm surge is the sea level, which is higher than they accounted for in the 80’s and therefore the storm surge is higher in this study,” Adorisio explained.  “Now the southern part of the county is lower than the middle and northern sections of the county...and it's to the point where FEMA believes that the higher storm surge elevation not only goes to I-95, it goes all the way to U.S. 27, which is close to the Everglades levee.  That’s why you have those almost 90,000 parcels that are increasing in flood risk and now in the Special Flood Hazard Area,” said Adorisio, who earlier in his career worked for FEMA as a technical consultant for flood maps. 

Ron Hurtibise, business reporter for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, first reported the scope of the 2024 flood map changes.  The new high-risk flood zones are primarily located along... (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-51-floridas-expanding-flood-zones/)  

A new working paper from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that for every dollar spent to elevate or buy-out a flooded home, $2.69 would be saved in future costs over the next 30 years.  Of the 1.3 million projects the paper identifies, roughly 138,000 would see a greater savings of $6 dollars.  Total savings would amount to $519 billion in future damage if governments and homeowners together would spend $193 billion today.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sat down with one of the paper’s co-authors and the head of a national home floodproofing solutions company to discuss the government’s current efforts – and what’s lacking – to avoid costly future flood damage across the nation.

Show Notes 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the research arm of the U.S. Congress, tasked with providing nonpartisan analysis for lawmakers to consider when making policy.  Its May 2024 working paper, Flood Damage Avoided by Potential Spending on Property-Level Adaptations found: 

“We started looking into federal spending on adaptation to flood risk and we found that there's a big literature out there, but it can be really difficult to compare across studies, and apply one context to another,” explained paper co-author Evan Herrnstadt.  “So we would need a scalable and flexible approach and found it was feasible for us to use the National Structure Inventory from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and flood modeling from the First Street Foundation and combine that with some other work to estimate avoided damage from property level interventions like buyouts and elevations,” said Herrnstadt, who is a CBO economist.  The national framework that CBO developed used inland and coastal residential properties that contain 1 to 4 housing units.

While the CBO doesn’t make policy recommendations to Congress, Herrnstadt said in this report, it does characterize sets of projects and different allocation schemes to provides potential opportunities to avoid flood damage paid principally by federal, state, and local governments, together with homeowners.  The paper notes that FEMA has multiple programs that fund property-level adaptation.  From fiscal years 2008 to 2019, annual obligations for those programs totaled about $280 million, representing an average of 29% of the amount FEMA has obligated for hazard mitigation.

“Evan this is fantastic work,” said Tom Little, President & CEO of Floodproofing.com, an integrated company providing property risk analysis, wet and dry floodproofing solutions, and flood insurance.  “This is the type of information that we need to get out there to continue to build awareness that we can actually invest money and get a strong return on that investment, by retrofitting the existing infrastructure that we have... (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-50-dollar-sale-on-flood-damage/) 

A new report claims that Florida's property insurance market is full of “low quality insurers,” especially those Florida-based companies that write the bulk of the 7.5 million homeowners and condo insurance policies.  It casts aspersions on Demotech, the rating agency that reviews their financial stability.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sat down with Demotech President Joe Petrelli to get the other side of the story that the report didn't.  She also learned that it wasn't low capital and surplus that led to seven company insolvencies, as the report claims, but instead targeted technology-enabled claim instigation.

Show Notes  (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-49-when-insurers-exit/) 

The report, When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets was written by researchers at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Federal Reserve Board and published online prior to being peer reviewed.  The report’s abstract describes it as a study of how homeowners insurance markets respond to growing climate losses and how this impacts the home mortgage markets.  

“Using Florida as a case study, we show that traditional insurers are exiting high risk areas, and new lower quality insurers are entering and filling the gap.  These new insurers service the riskiest areas, are less diversified, hold less capital, and 20 percent of them become insolvent.  We trace their growth to a lax insurance regulatory environment.  Yet, despite their low quality, these insurers secure high financial stability ratings, not from traditional rating agencies, but from emerging rating agencies.”  

The report specifically targets rating agency Demotech, which provides Financial Stability Ratings (FSR) for most of the 50 or so Florida-based property insurance companies, including six of the recent eight carriers to enter the market.  The report claims Demotech’s ratings “are high enough to meet the minimum rating requirements” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which back many home mortgages, but that most of those insurance companies wouldn’t meet government requirements if rated by AM Best, suggesting the companies are financially weak.

“I think the thing to keep in mind is the report is based on what are called counterfactual AM Best ratings of Demotech-rated companies,” said Joe Petrelli, President of Demotech, who described counterfactual methods as those based on “what-if” scenarios.  “So I think that, in and of itself, should have alerted people that this was not based on anything real or actual.  It was based on counterfactual information.  It's like rewinding the world, changing a few crucial details, and then hitting play to see what happens.  It's essentially a simulation,” said Petrelli.

Petrelli is an actuary and a 55-year veteran of the insurance industry.  He and wife Sharon co-founded Demotech in 1985 and today the agency reviews and rates 460 insurance companies across America.  It is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a nationally-recognized statistical rating organization for insurance companies.  Florida regulators approached Demotech in 1995 to become the very first ratings company to review and rate independent, regional and specialty companies that filled the gap left by....  (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-49-when-insurers-exit/)

How will the insurance bills that passed in the recently completed 2024 Florida legislative session compliment past marketplace reforms?   Is a property insurance market marred by carrier insolvencies in recent years and ongoing double-digit rate increases starting to stabilize? 

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller talks with two legislators about the new laws expected to impact Florida’s property insurance and real estate markets, reinsurance prices, condominium affordability, and their joint belief in bipartisanship for finding workable policy solutions. 

Show Notes 

Florida State Representative Tom Fabricio (R-Miami Lakes) sits on the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee and Chairs the House Ethics, Elections & Open Government Subcommittee.  He is a former insurance defense attorney whose practice now focuses on commercial and real estate litigation, including real estate transactions.  

Florida State Senator Nick DiCeglie (R-St. Petersburg) is Vice Chair of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and a former Chair of the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee.  He is President and CEO of Hope Villages of America, a Tampa Bay area nonprofit organization addressing hunger, homelessness, and domestic violence.

Both lawmakers discussed their motivation for entering the Florida Legislature and their vision for Florida’s homeowners insurance marketplace and by extension, the state economy.  Topics included the admitted insurance market (those companies whose rates and policy forms are approved by state regulators) and the surplus lines companies (those whose rates and forms are largely unregulated, and who often insure risks admitted companies don’t), along with reinsurance companies, who provide catastrophe insurance for insurance companies.  Among the bills and issues discussed on the podcast with host Lisa Miller: 

(For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-48-2024-legislative-roundup/ ) 

Ray Shelton, Ph.D. is a nationally-known expert on stress and the impacts it has on frontline personnel in disasters and other crises.  He is a Fellow and the Director of Professional Development for The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, in Miller Place, New York.  He’s seen tragedy first-hand over 35 years serving with the Nassau County, New York Police department, including the Twin Towers Collapse during 9/11.  He’s also a former firefighter and paramedic.

“The adjusters are no different than fire, police, and EMS, they're front line.  They're action-oriented.  They take risks.  They have tremendous attention to detail.  They have a powerful need for control, to help people get their lives back in order,” said Shelton.  “But the price that is paid for that, is all of the memories, all of the conversations, all of the sites that they see stays with them.  There's absolutely no delete button in the human brain.”

Shelton worked with the Liberty Mutual Insurance Catastrophe Response Team during the California Wildfires in 2008 and subsequent tornado outbreaks across the country.  That’s where he met Jenny Pye, M.S., whose 35 years with Liberty Mutual included serving as a Property Claims Manager and Director of Quality Improvement for Auto Physical Damage (APD), Property, and Shared Services.

“Every time I hear Ray talk, it takes me back to early in my career when I was an adjuster in the field and would go out and have multiple fatality 18-Wheeler accidents, and just the emotions of being on scene and investigating a claim,” said Pye.  
“Sometimes the bodies were still there and then talking to their families, just all those emotions.”

Today, Pye is the Director of Commercial Claims at Pilot Catastrophe Services, based in Mobile, Alabama.   She helps adjusters and the firms they serve to not only proficiently manage the technical part of the job, but manage the emotional toll that claims can have.  She said adjusters who strive for great customer experience, often ignore or cover-up signs of traumatic stress.  

“But sometimes you get feedback as a manager and hopefully before you get that feedback from your customer, you're recognizing these issues,” said Pye.  “Maybe the adjuster is not as responsive as they normally are.  It's not just answering a text or phone call, if you're calling about a claim, it can be on a Zoom call and you will see where these folks that are normally engaged are not engaged.”  That, she adds, requires claim managers to “finely tune your senses to be aware of what’s going on.”

Shelton, who presents “Fine Tuned Adjuster” webinars for the Property Loss & Research Bureau said there are consequences of not recognizing the signs in adjusters or of claims management not responding to the signs.

“If you do nothing, it stops productivity and the bigger danger (is) maybe that you lose that person who has bottled this all up from multiple times that this has occurred and finally says, ‘You know, I've had enough’ and they leave the industry,” Shelton said, noting the current market challenge of recruiting adjusters to replace those that leave the profession.

(For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-47-stress-strain-of-adjusting/) 

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are getting closer to providing insurance companies with a new underwriting tool to combat fraud: the ability to review meeting minutes and other public documents from homeowners and condominium associations, whose communities are home to nearly half of Florida’s 22.3 million residents.

Several Florida associations have been accused of recent wrongdoing, including one where four former board members were arrested, accused of engaging in a multi-million dollar embezzlement of monthly dues from residents.  Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sat down with an insurance lawyer and an insurance services company executive who uses AI, to find out how often this fraud happens, how it increases property insurance rates, and exactly how the new technology to fight it will work.

Show Notes 

The South Florida Sun Sentinel did a recent exposé of a West Miami development called The Hammocks, a 6,500-unit community of houses, townhouses, and condominiums.  Four former association board members were arrested for allegedly engaging in an intricate scheme to embezzle millions of dollars in monthly dues from residents.  Authorities say $2.4 million in checks were written to five companies that did little or no work for the homeowners association (HOA) – two of them owned by the husband of the former board president.  

Andy McGuire, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of PEAK6 InsurTech, said such fraudulent practices contribute to inflationary pricing and higher insurance rates.   He said advances in technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and the machine learning process, are providing better insights into risk.  His company’s subsidiary, Focus Technologies, is doing this today to serve its customers better. 

“With enough observations, you can run a model, for example, on the language used in the meeting minutes to potentially pick up on schemes,” said McGuire.  “Now that we have this example, for this particular issue, we can build an AI and teach it with these talk paths or words and knowing that it resulted in fraud, you have your first learning.  You can get enough positive observations that you now have a model that an underwriter can load the minutes into and get a prediction.  Combine that with financial data and a propensity to commit fraud of each individual member of the board, and you have a fully automated decision tree.  I don't think we're totally there yet, but we're really close.  This is the future,” said McGuire, whose 25 years in the industry include risk management and reinsurance.

Tiffany Rothenberg is a Partner at the Kelley Kronenberg law firm’s West Palm Beach office in the heart of Florida’s condominium country.  She represents commercial property insurance companies in complex coverage disputes and is an expert in the HOA and condominium association insurance claims arena.  

“I can't tell you how frequently we end up seeing this kind of a scenario,” Rothenberg told host Lisa Miller.  “I just had a case here in Palm Beach County, where the association submitted a $4.5 million dollar Hurricane Irma claim for roof damage.  When we started to review their condo records, we discovered that the association actually had five roof replacement proposals that were all under $1 million.  And then during depositions, it came out they actually signed a contract with one of those roofing contractors for around... (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-46-insurers-know-the-building-and-the-board/)  

Media coverage has intensified over an allegation by three independent insurance adjusters that Florida property insurance companies are cheating their policyholders out of rightful claim payouts.  The three accuse the industry of altering their field adjuster reports and reducing claim payouts – all without their knowledge or approval. 

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sat down with two independent field adjusters and an attorney who represents insurance companies to learn their perspective and just how damage claims – and their payouts – are ultimately decided and by whom.    

Show Notes 

The three adjusters and their allegations first appeared in public last December to testify during the Florida Legislature’s special session which resulted in a series of new consumer insurance reforms.  The reforms included the end of one-way attorney fees for property insurance lawsuits, the end of Assignment of Benefit contracts, and a further tightening of claim practices, among other things.  These were all abusive practices by bad actors against insurance companies and policyholders that were blamed for driving up the cost of insurance and creating market turmoil. (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/13875-2/)   

Shawn Kelliher of Cape Coral is a 16-year veteran in the insurance adjusting business.  His first 13 years were working for Farmers Insurance Company as a desk adjuster and then as a catastrophe field adjuster, including large loss and complex claims across the country.  He said “it’s absolutely not the case” that insurance companies are out to get everybody and explained that there are many legitimate reasons why field damage estimate reports change.   Field adjusters often don’t know what damage is covered by the insurance policy.  

“Some policies have actual cash value only coverage, some policies have specific exclusions for certain items and a lot of times we don't know that,” Kelliher said.  “So we see and document the damage and that goes in our report and that’s sent up (to the independent adjusting firm or insurance company), only to be later found out that, unfortunately, in those circumstances where they (the policyholders) don't have coverage, those items have to be removed or taken out of the estimate.  And it's not a malicious situation,” the Naples, Florida native said.  Kelliher said he’s seen it many times over the past three years that he’s been an independent adjuster in Florida.  He said he works for a variety of adjusting firms and across a vast array of insurance carriers, doing both residential and commercial work.  

Vanessa McGonigal, an independent field adjuster from Cooper City agrees.  Often times, she said she is not aware of any changes that may take place in the final adjusting report on a claim.  “If we're preparing an estimate for all of the damages we see and we submit that and coverage is not afforded for something written on our estimate, where is it that we should give permission to have that removed?  If it's not covered, it's not covered,” McGonigal said.  She began her career in 2009 as an estimator for a general contractor and then five years ago, became an independent field adjuster.  She said she has worked for a couple of independent insurance adjusting firms, doing both residential and commercial claims, including from Hurricane Ian.

Both McGonigal and Kelliher said that if there is a change to the estimate, sometimes they make it, sometimes their adjustment firm does it, or the desk adjuster at the insurance company, depending on the change and the situation. 

“They'll call me and say, ‘Hey, you know, I read your report, I saw your photos, this is what I was thinking.  Can you kind of explain your thought process here or justify what it is that you put in your estimate?’ and we’ll have a conversation about it,” said Kelliher, who has worked “several hundred” Hurricane Ian claims.  “And ultimately, again, ultimately, it's the carrier's determination of coverage.  As independent adjusters, we have zero claims authority to extend coverage.  The adjustments that are being made, are to bring the estimate accurate, or in line with the policy or coverages as endorsed.”

McGonigal outlined the steps she takes as a field adjuster from the time she is assigned the claim to delivering her report on damage.  She said her typical day could include handling up to 15 Hurricane Ian claims.  That doesn’t leave a lot of time – nor should it – for follow-up, unless there’s a question or a dispute about damages, the Hollywood native said.   

Robert Schulte is an attorney with the Louisiana-based Monson Law Firm, working in its Florida office.  He has represented Florida insurance companies in homeowners and commercial insurance matters since 2012 and is skeptical of the three adjusters’ allegations against the industry.  “In the weeks before their December testimony, there was a YouTube video featuring the same folks and if you look at the description of that YouTube channel, it says, “We’re politically involved, where appropriate, to help consumers maintain the ability to hire professional and legal representation,” Schulte said.  “And so it should be no surprise that it seems like there's an agenda here and maybe there's a misunderstanding of what's going on.” 

The industry responded to the adjusters’ allegations by saying what they described is not common practice and at least one investigation is underway by regulators.  The Florida Legislature responded this spring, in part, by passing Senate Bill 7052, which Governor DeSantis signed into law.  It requires that any altered or amended insurance adjuster’s report include the following three elements:

“I do think that what's happened here is some give and take by the legislature,” said Schulte.  “More transparency is part of what the new process is with the new laws.  Is it just right?  Is it too far?  Or is it not enough?  We just have to wait and see, while these things work their way through the legal system,” he said. 

Host Miller noted there is skepticism by some in the insurance marketplace, given that independent adjusters are independent contractors, who are often paid based on a percentage of the claim.  She asked both McGonigal and Kelliher if there is a built-in temptation by adjusters as a result to inflate the claim estimate.

“I do believe that there could be some fellow 1099 field adjusters that think about that and do that, it is possible, yes,” said McGonigal.  “The answer is absolutely yes,” said Kelliher, who said that he’s done re-inspections often for estimates that are almost rejected because of the way they were written.  “Some adjusters are unscrupulous enough to write for increased or padded damages that are just not supported.  So you know, just because the adjuster wrote an estimate that's $100,000 does not mean that $100,000 estimate is supported,” he said.   The bottom line?  “If the estimate was written inaccurately, by all means, it needs to be changed and adjusted to make it accurate, even if it does reduce that adjuster’s estimate,” Kelliher said.

Schulte went on to explain specific instances where the estimate of damages is reduced.  There are lots of moving parts to a property insurance claim with multiple interactions among multiple parties.  “I think that what would help people is to understand how it's not just one person that makes the decision, and that it's the insurance company that's making the decision,” Schulte said.   “The insurance company is putting together all of the pieces of the puzzle to arrive at a fair evaluation of the claim pursuant to the policy.”

Host Miller reminded listeners that out of the more than 710,000 Hurricane Ian claims at last report, the number of those having problems with claim payments “according to the Department of Financial Services statistics is very, very small, less than 1% is the number that I'm hearing,” she said.  “Less than 20 or so questionable claims by these three adjusters are the recent focus of so much of the media's attention.  We're missing the forest for the trees,” Miller added.   She said the Florida Department of Financial Services Consumer Helpline exists to help open communication lines and help resolve complaints that do exist between consumers and their insurance companies.  “As Florida’s CFO Jimmy Patronis recently told a reporter, ‘There’s two sides to every story.’”

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Florida Adjusters’ Charges of Doctored Damage Reports Get Wider Spotlight (Insurance Journal, March 13, 2023)

Key Provisions of 2022 Insurance Consumer Protections & Market Reforms (Lisa Miller & Associates)

SB 7052, the Insurer Accountability Law of 2023 (Bill Watch, May 8, 2023, Lisa Miller & Associates)

HB 837, the Civil Remedies (Tort Reform) Law of 2023 (Bill Watch, May 8, 2023, Lisa Miller & Associates)

Department of Financial Services (DFS) insurance consumer helpline (1-877-MY-FL-CFO)

The Monson Law Firm

** The Listener Call-In Line for your recorded questions and comments to air in future episodes is 850-388-8002 or you may send email to [email protected] **

The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates, brings you the latest developments in Property & Casualty, Healthcare, Workers' Compensation, and Surplus Lines insurance from around the Sunshine State.  Based in the state capital of Tallahassee, Lisa Miller & Associates provides its clients with focused, intelligent, and cost conscious solutions to their business development, government consulting, and public relations needs.  On the web at www.LisaMillerAssociates.com or call 850-222-1041.  Your questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome!  Date of Recording 6/1/2023. Email via [email protected]   Composer: www.TeleDirections.com  © Copyright 2017-2023 Lisa Miller & Associates, All Rights Reserved 

An interim report submitted to the Florida Building Commission says that Southwest Florida coastal communities impacted by last September’s Hurricane Ian were “ill-prepared” for the storm surge and flooding, despite lessons on wind mitigation learned from Hurricane Charley 18 years earlier.  Ian was the costliest storm in Florida history, killing 156 people and causing an estimated $109.5 billion in damage in Florida.  Only an estimated half of that will be covered by insurance.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sat down with the report’s co-author and another extreme events scientist who produced early catastrophic models on Ian for insurance companies.  They discussed how this new research shows some of the same patterns of destruction seen in prior storms, that Florida hurricanes are not getting stronger or more frequent, how elderly and poor residents are disproportionately hurt, potential changes to the state building code, and why a new approach to mitigation is needed.    

Show Notes 

New lessons are emerging from Hurricane Ian, the high-end Category 4 hurricane that made landfall near Fort Myers Beach on September 28, 2022.  An interim report by a team of scientists supported by the Florida Building Commission showed Ian’s tropical storm-force wind field was 2.3 times the diameter of 2004’s Hurricane Charley.  The greater resulting storm surge of 13 feet impacted high population areas living in both elevated and on-grade homes along hundreds of miles of canals and coastal frontage.  (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-44-dynamic-duo-ian-hit-hard/) 

Findings: The report evaluates specific building code-related impacts to structural performance, including breakaway walls relative to code provisions, placement of the coastal construction control line, evidence for surge-induced floor slab uplift forces, and performance of common roof cover and wall cladding elements. 

Dr. David O. Prevatt, one of the report’s co-authors, is a Professor of Civil & Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.  He is part of the Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network of researchers and product engineers that conducts surveys to assess building performance after each hurricane.  Its evaluation was used in the interim report and captured Hurricane Ian’s damage patterns and storm surge.  Dr. Prevatt said Ian was not a design level wind-event, meaning its wind speed on land of about 120 mph was below the building code standards of 154-160 mph for Lee County, where it made landfall on September 28, 2022.

“The severe damage we saw was really the flooding, in particular the manufactured homes on Fort Myers Beach and mostly older slab-on-grade homes,” said Dr. Prevatt.  “The good news, if there is any that we can draw from this, is that recent construction built to the recent Florida Building Code standards performed well, even in areas where they were impacted by the 13-foot high storm surge.”

Yet, Ian destroyed or severely damaged about 20,000 homes in a wide path from Lee County on the Gulf Coast and inland across central Florida to Daytona Beach on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.    Dr. Prevatt said he saw the same patterns of damage in Ian that he saw in the previous six years from Hurricanes Matthew, Irma, and Michael.  “It’s one of the saddest parts for me.  If we don't harden our communities or retreat and move them away from these intense events, we will repeat what we've seen here five, 10, 20 years down the road,” said Dr. Prevatt.    

Dr. Karthik Ramanathan is Vice President of Research at Verisk, the worldwide data analytics and risk assessment firm.  He led the catastrophe modeling team that estimated Hurricane Ian’s initial insurance and reinsurance losses at between $42 billion to $57 billion, not including federal flood insurance losses.  The firm’s catastrophe or extreme event models not only help insurance companies determine adequate insurance premiums to the assessed value of risk and speed adjusters to the hardest hit areas right after the storm but “can also act as excellent platforms for you to test out the impact of mitigation measures,” said Dr. Ramanathan.  

“As David said, the performance of manufactured homes or mobile homes continues to be a major issue, even 30 years after Hurricane Andrew, although a lot has been done to strengthen them,” said Dr. Ramanathan.  “We saw a colossal amount of damage to manufactured homes.  Older and middle aged homes also saw significant damage.”  He and his team spent a week in South Florida after Hurricane Ian made landfall, surveying damage in both coastal and inland counties.  Some inland counties he noted had “pretty staggering” claim losses similar to coastal counties near Ian’s landfall.

“Even on the wind side, some of these inland counties saw a significant amount of claims, primarily coming in from roof damage.  And to me, it's mind boggling, seeing the same state which sort of pioneered wind design, not just in the United States, but across the world, is seeing some of the same issues 30 years on in an event like Ian,” said Dr. Ramanathan.  

New Approaches to Mitigation: Host Miller noted that mitigation often poses a quandary for homeowners and policymakers.  “We’re looking at construction costs going through the roof if we build stronger.  We’re looking at property insurance premiums rising because perhaps we haven’t,” she said.   

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Nicole made landfall on Florida’s east coast with modest winds but a large storm surge, creating additional flooding and tremendous coastal erosion.  Nearly 50 oceanfront homes, condominium buildings, and hotels in Volusia County either collapsed into the surf or suffered severe erosion damage.

Dr. Prevatt said the same conditions have actually existed for thousands of years in Florida.  

“We have the same hurricanes today.  They are no more intense.  They're not larger, nor are they more frequent than the hurricanes that have moved over the last 5,000 years.  So what is happening?  We have more construction.  We have more people building on barrier islands.  Barrier islands are called barrier islands, I think, because they were meant to protect the mainland shoreline from the storm surge, from these damages.  And they're meant to move the sand with the wind.  Hurricanes are natural hazards.  This is just how things are,” said Dr. Prevatt.

Florida’s population, he points out, is four times what it was in the 1970’s.  “We really have to stop and ask ourselves, ‘How much further?  How much money?  How much federal effort should we put into securing and holding on with our own biting nails, to small pieces of land, as opposed to leaving and understanding what is happening on a natural basis?’,” Dr. Prevatt asked.

“We are building in areas where we are not supposed to build,” Dr. Ramanathan agreed, noting a Florida Department of Environmental Protection report on designated critically eroded beaches.  “And further, we are building in a manner that is not necessarily resilient by putting homes on slab foundations.  It is what led to a disaster that, according to my humble opinion, could have been 100% mitigated.”

Part of the mitigation challenge is that 65% of Florida’s homes were built prior to Hurricane Andrew.  “New construction may be adding 2% or 3% to our housing inventory per year.  So we’re just not at scale to really impact future changes in our mitigation,” said Dr. Prevatt.  He said what’s needed is “research that will actually retrofit houses at scale, not one house at a time, (but) one neighborhood at a time, one town at a time.”  Doing so will involve looking beyond the Bell Curve of statistics and instead disaggregating the data.

“And what you're going to find is that the majority of this damage, disproportionately high percentages, are going to fall on the least able in our society.  The poorest, the minorities, the black communities, and the tribal communities.  These are the people who have been wiped out.  And the retirees.  Did you know that over 65% of the fatalities in Ian were over 60 years of age?” Dr. Prevatt pointed out.

Recommended Building Code Changes: The interim report will be updated to address questions by the Florida Building Commission that will lead to a final report, which can inform future code changes.  Dr. Ramanathan believes the commission can make additional changes to the Florida Building Code beyond those mandated in recent sessions of the Florida Legislature.    He said he would like to see more durable screened enclosures on homes “because if you have to replace a screened enclosure, you're looking at a claim to the magnitude of about $5,000 or $6,000 or probably higher with inflation.”  He said he’d also like to see required window protection across Florida, regardless of whether the home is in a designated wind-borne debris region, “which don’t cost a lot to install.”  Finally, although manufactured homes fall under federal HUD standards, he said states can add local amendments.    

“I hope, as David said, if the foundation designed for manufactured homes can be looked at closely and even more importantly, if they can be enforced to the same degree as some of the other regular single family home enforcements take place in Florida, I think it will go a long way in mitigating damage following such events,” said Dr. Ramanathan.  

Dr. Prevatt said he wouldn’t look to the Florida Building Code for short-term changes, but rather a bigger picture of how to create a resilient community born in the 22nd Century.  “I would spend my time in the interdisciplinary research between the economics, urban planning, and engineering analysis that will be necessary for us to re-site our coastal residential communities inland on a macro level.“  Included in that would be converting coastal land to other uses, finding ways to buy-out private properties, and moving entire communities to safer areas, he said. 

“If we engineers continue to do the same type of research for the next 20 years in the same type of way, we will still end up with the same result.  We have to think way bigger, we have to be grand, we have to be bold, and we have to go out there and do this.  This is a moonshot moment.  This is the time that Florida needs to step up and change it all,” said Dr. Prevatt.

Dr. Ramathan said Verisk does a lot of community outreach, through its work with extreme event models.  “In fact, one of our missions is to promote global resilience.  Because insurance, the way I look at it, is the best form of mitigation if used properly,” said Dr. Ramanathan.

Host Miller pledged to work with the “dynamic duo” of guests and the listening audience to expand the outreach of this critical scientific research to better educate local, regional, and state policymakers, as well as federal officials.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Interim Report: Survey and Investigation of Buildings Damaged by Hurricane Ian (University of Florida Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment, April 17, 2023)

Dr. Prevatt slide presentation of Interim Report to the Florida Building Commission (May 10, 2023)

Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance Network, November 17, 2022) (Scroll down to the “Documents” section and click “View Data” to reveal the three PVRR PDF reports)

Priority Research Areas: Hurricane Ian (StEER Network, November 16, 2022)

Estimated Industry Insured Losses to Onshore Property for Hurricane Ian (Verisk, October 2, 2022)

Florida Senate Community Affairs Committee meeting on the Champlain Towers South Condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida |video of meeting | Florida Building Commission meeting materials (The Florida Channel, January 24, 2023)

Critically Eroded Beaches in Florida (Florida Department of Environmental Protection, June 2022)

Florida Designated Wind-borne Debris Regions (Florida Building Commission, as of December 2020)

Early Lessons from Ian’s Damage (LMA Newsletter of 12-5-22)

Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund Program (FEMA, December 21, 2022)

Ian Was Costliest Florida Hurricane (LMA Newsletter of 4-10-23)

All of Florida is at risk of hurricanes. So why aren’t impact windows or shutters required statewide? (Sun Sentinel, February 5, 2023)

Florida Building Commission

** The Listener Call-In Line for your recorded questions and comments to air in future episodes is 850-388-8002 or you may send email to [email protected] **

The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates, brings you the latest developments in Property & Casualty, Healthcare, Workers' Compensation, and Surplus Lines insurance from around the Sunshine State.  Based in the state capital of Tallahassee, Lisa Miller & Associates provides its clients with focused, intelligent, and cost conscious solutions to their business development, government consulting, and public relations needs.  On the web at www.LisaMillerAssociates.com or call 850-222-1041.  Your questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome!  Date of Recording 2/18/2023. Email via [email protected]   Composer: www.TeleDirections.com  © Copyright 2017-2023 Lisa Miller & Associates, All Rights Reserved

The December 2022 property insurance market reforms passed by the Florida Legislature are making a big difference already, with fewer and less severe non-hurricane claims and fewer daily lawsuits, according to a major Florida insurance company. 

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller talks with Stacey Giulianti of Florida Peninsula Insurance Company on how the reforms have leveled the playing field in insurance litigation and together with innovative industry practices, will bring positive results for consumers, carriers, and their reinsurance companies.

Show Notes

Stacey Giulianti is a Co-Founder and Chief Legal Officer at Florida Peninsula Insurance Company, a Florida-based homeowners property insurance carrier.  Together with its sister company Edison Insurance, they have a combined 180,000 polices in Florida.  The 2022 reforms were designed to stem high insurance and reinsurance rates, carrier insolvencies, inflated claims, an overly-competitive residual market, and especially excessive litigation.  According to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, in 2021 Florida had 7% of the nation’s homeowners insurance claims yet 76% of the nation’s homeowners insurance lawsuits.  (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-43-future-of-florida-insurance-litigation/) 

Giulianti, a former plaintiff attorney before representing insurance companies, said the reforms, specifically the elimination of one-way attorney fees, will “level the playing field” between plaintiff and defense attorneys in disputed claims.  “The problem was that it really only gave the incentive to the plaintiff lawyers, to people like me back in the day, to file that suit, no matter what, it doesn't matter about mediating, it doesn't matter about coming together and trying to find common ground, it was like, ‘Who cares, I am going to get attorney fees one way or the other,’” he said.

He disagrees with critics who argued that eliminating the one-way attorney fees would create a barrier for consumers looking to find an attorney to sue an insurance company on their behalf.  He said courts at the end of a case can still award attorney fees if justified and tax costs, such as the hiring of an expert witness, something he said is actually needed in less than 10% of disputes.  “That's a little bit of nonsense from plaintiff lawyers trying to say that you need an expert in every case,” said Giulianti, who is also an accredited claims adjuster.  “You don't, because most of these cases, we already know what the damage is.   And it's really a scope and pricing differential.  Do you repair it, do you replace it, is it $5,000 to repair that, or is it $50,000 to repair that?”  Giulianti said that hiring an expert would still be less expensive to the consumer than paying 30% to 40% of their court award in attorney fees.

Innovative Options: The reforms allow insurance companies to offer mandatory binding arbitration in their policies with a resulting premium discount.  “Ultimately what we want is a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to get an answer.  What we are really looking for is for someone to tell us either way, what the answer is to the dispute.  You get the answer relatively fast and it’s resolved, versus court cases that can last for years.”  Giulianti said the vast majority of claims are undisputed and simply get paid by insurance companies.

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state-backed residual market carrier in Florida, recently received regulatory approval to handle contested claims outside of court through the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings.   These are for claims that were either denied because of a determination of no coverage or contract limitations regarding the coverage amount.  “I think those types of judges from the administrative side are every bit as smart as anybody else who's going to be sitting on the bench and making those decisions,” said Giulianti, who is a member of both the Florida and Maine Bars.

Florida Peninsula Insurance, along with some other carriers, have created “Customer Experience Departments,” in an effort to avoid disputes in the first place by making the claim process “as smooth as possible,” he said.  During Hurricanes Ian and Nicole, Giulianti said he personally handled 300-400 First Notice of Loss calls and an additional 200-300 follow-up calls.  “We have to do a better job, all of us as an industry, of walking people through the process and being transparent.”  His suggestion: treat the customer as you would “the friend of the company’s CEO.”

Reinsurance: Host Miller noted that although the recent legislative reforms included some state-provided assistance for insurance carriers needing reinsurance, it will not be enough, given the dwindling availability and affordability of reinsurance.  She asked Giulianti what a reinsurer should look at in an insurance company that it’s considering offering reinsurance coverage to.  “Look at the company’s operations in regards to what data they collect and how they use it, especially in underwriting.  Some companies do better than others in using data to better protect their capital,” he replied.  “Carriers are going to remember who in the reinsurance side stuck with them during this time when they weren't sure, because I'm telling you, it's going to get much better.  I saw it with the sinkholes issue.  I was a plaintiff's lawyer.  I know how people think.”

Expanded Elimination of One-Way Attorney Fees: Host Miller and Giulianti also discussed Governor Ron DeSantis’ recent proposal to expand the elimination of one-way attorney fees to disputes in all insurance lines, including automobile insurance, to address what the Governor called a “cottage industry of litigation.”  Giulianti applauded the move.  “So we're going to modernize it and not have this old ‘Hey, if you get $1 more than what you said you were going to get, you get a million dollars in attorney fees,’ which is, by the way, sometimes what happens.  You have a $10,000 case, somebody gets an extra dollar or $1,000 more than they thought they were going to get, and they get 500,000 to a million dollars in attorney fees.  That's not hyperbole, that's actually what's going on,” Giulianti said.  Eliminating the contingency fee multiplier that judges can award to sometimes double the attorney fees and reforming bad faith law – all part of the Governor’s proposal – is also very welcome he said.

“2023 will be a bit bumpy as policies are changed over to reflect the new language in the recent legislative reforms, but for those who stick it out, 2024 is going to be a banner year,” predicted Giulianti.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Barry Gilway: Florida's New Law is a Profound Change (The Florida Insurance Roundup podcast of December 29, 2022)

Florida Peninsula Insurance Company

Florida One-Way Attorney Fee Statute 627.428 

Key Provisions of 2022 Insurance Consumer Protections & Market Reforms (SB 2-D & SB 2-A)

Property Insurance Stability Report (Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, January 2023) 

Florida Citizens’ Endorsement Now in Effect: Disputes to be Heard by Admin Judges (Insurance Journal, February 6, 2023)

Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Comprehensive Lawsuit Reforms to Protect Floridians from Predatory Billboard Attorneys (Governor’s Office Press Release, February 14, 2023)

2022 Litigation Reform & Consumer Protections (Lisa Miller & Associates)

Florida Market ‘Plagued’ by Attorney Fee-Shifting (LMA Newsletter of December 5, 2022) 

** The Listener Call-In Line for your recorded questions and comments to air in future episodes is 850-388-8002 or you may send email to [email protected] **

The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates, brings you the latest developments in Property & Casualty, Healthcare, Workers' Compensation, and Surplus Lines insurance from around the Sunshine State.  Based in the state capital of Tallahassee, Lisa Miller & Associates provides its clients with focused, intelligent, and cost conscious solutions to their business development, government consulting, and public relations needs.  On the web at www.LisaMillerAssociates.com or call 850-222-1041.  Your questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome!  Date of Recording 2/14/2023. Email via [email protected]   Composer: www.TeleDirections.com  © Copyright 2017-2023 Lisa Miller & Associates, All Rights Reserved