Commentary: Insurers protecting their bottom line in Florida
It is absolutely disgraceful and disrespectful for insurance companies to ignore homeowners in their biggest time of need.
However, that’s not the whole story.
The reality is, a storm is brewing in Florida and it’s a result of insurers protecting their own bottom line instead of protecting property owners.
Big insurance carriers throughout Florida and even the state-run property insurer, Citizens, spent this year’s legislative session in Tallahassee trying to convince lawmakers that water damage claims by property owners are jeopardizing the insurance market and driving up insurance rates. Their claim: fraudulent actors are causing an increase in water claim payouts. However, insurance carriers across the board are routinely shorting contractors who have completed restoration work resulting from legitimate claims, paying them 50 to 75 percent less than what the work actually costs. The result, thousands of unnecessary lawsuits that are costing dramatically more than the original claims themselves.
When insurers lose these lawsuits, they have to pay attorney’s fees, a cost they are passing on to consumers in the form of higher premiums! The “crisis” insurers claim is driving up costs, is something they have created!
Questions need to be asked of insurance carriers to determine how much they are paying in legal fees, and why they are losing the majority of these cases. Why are they continuing to deny legitimate claims resulting in lawsuits and legal fees that are often double and triple the cost of the original claim?
Instead, insurance lobbyists in the Capitol are asking lawmakers to make a big change by proposing a new law to change the “Assignment of Benefits” in property claims. An assignment of benefits requires the insurance company to pay insurance benefits to your chosen contractor directly for the work property owners have approved as a result of an insurance claim. Later, if there is a dispute or disagreement over payment for your claim, the contractor and insurance company deal with it, not the property owners. However, these legislative proposals will force homeowners to pay out of pocket for repairs despite having insurance.
The reality is most businesses who do damage repair or restoration for property owners are certified in the field that they do work in, and are licensed contractors who are invested in the local community and want to take care of their customers, especially after they’ve experienced a disaster.
They do legitimate work, use nationally re
cognized standards to complete their repairs (IICRC) and use software which was created by the insurance industry called “exactimate” to determine pricing for the repairs. So why are insurers continuing to deny claims and end up in court?
It is absolutely disgraceful and disrespectful for insurance companies to ignore homeowners in their biggest time of need.
Practical changes that would be a win-win-win for homeowners, contractors and insurance companies need to be considered rather than upending a system that has protected consumers for over 100 years.
http://www.news-press.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/07/19/storm-brewing-insurers-florida/490866001/
