On Property Insurance Claim Tips Blog

Citizens Insurance is spending tons of policyholder premiums to pay its lawyer friends to fight these claims it clearly should be covering!! Citizens hit with a $12.7 million verdict, acted in monumental bad faith and as a result 500 people who own property in this community continue to suffer from a claim that has languished since 2007. It makes me wonder who is running this company, management or the attorneys?

As we've reported to you on this blog, Citizens Insurance of Florida is allow by the legislature to play by different rules. For example, they are exempt from bad faith laws that other private insurance companies must follow. That sometimes means it allows them to act in ways that are not in the best interest of the property insurance policyholder. What is perplexing is that if private insurance companies acted in this manner, they would be subject to sanctions, fines and legal action.

You can bet at any gathering of a group of Florida licensed public adjusters, the conversation will start off with the question of how many Florida public adjusters currently exist. No question about it, Florida saw an explosion in the ranks of the public adjusting profession since the big four storms of 2004, as compared to the historical record.  And this does not include the hundreds of non-resident licensed public adjusters who fly into this State to solicit and handle claims.  In the past few years however, the actual number of in-state licensed public adjusters has started a precipitous decline because of several factors.

It’s been an eventful year for public adjusters and the insurance claims industry. So I want to share my 2014 News Year’s Wish List for the property insurance industry.

1. I wish Congress would fix the Biggert-Waters 2012 National Flood Insurance Reform Act. This extremely ill-conceived act of Congress is causing great harm to homeowners all across this country. Remember, an affordability study was supposed to have been commissioned with this legislation but is now two years away according to some accounts in the media. Meanwhile, policyholders who have been in their homes for years (and I am not just talking about high priced homeowners) are hurting because of premium increases and no buyers for their property. Shame on Congress for this!

Citizens floats a sinkhole fix was the headline in the Tampa Bay Times article that ran in the paper on 12/11/2013.

The article says letters will go out to “current and potentially future litigants this week that offered to pay for repairs.”  This program, which we reported on in one of our previous blogs, has been in the works for some time when it was passed out of a Citizens claim committee and sent to the full board for approval.  So based on the Times article, Citizens’ board must have approved it.

A recent media article following the new catastrophic sinkhole loss in Dunedin, Florida caught my attention the other day as it looks like we have two forces on a collision path. And wouldn’t you know that the poor insured policyholder is caught in the middle.

Public adjuster Keith Grams of Tutwiler & Associates was recently interviewed by WFLA and NBC News about sinkhole insurance repair issues. He offers further comments regarding concerns about the direction the insurance companies and legislature are taking.

As part of the national news coverage of the Dunedin, Florida sinkhole collapse, many questions were brought up about the laws governing sinkhole insurance coverage. It was apparent many homeowners and even some media were confused. As part of the coverage Tutwiler & Associates public adjuster Keith Grams was interview by NBC national news. We thank Keith for his contributions and have placed the entire interview below.