The first thing we do is drown all the lawyers
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press foot firmly on head, repeat as necessary
The NYPost is out with an alarming — quelle surprise! — article about the state of the state of Florida’s insurance industry; all very distressing, I’m sure, but it references a statistic that I looked up, and sure enough, is accurate:
According to National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) data mined by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, while Florida homeowners insurance claims accounted for just over 8% of all homeowners claims opened by U.S. insurers in 2019, homeowners insurance lawsuits in Florida accounted for more than 76% of all litigation against insurers nationwide.
And those results are not an anomaly just for that year, the report says.
Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier alerted Florida House Commerce Committee Chair Blaise Ingoglia to the new data gathered by his office from the NAIC in a letter last week.
“Litigation trends in Florida have been consistently many times higher than any other state,” Altmaier wrote, citing NAIC data that shows Florida lawsuits rose steadily from 64.4% of all nationwide homeowners lawsuits in 2016, to 68% in 2017, to 79.9% in 2018 and 76.4% in 2019 (see chart).
Florida carriers lost more than $1.6 billion in 2020 thanks in part to excessive litigation, reinsurance costs and natural catastrophes. Companies are taking extreme steps to reduce their exposure in areas where there is high litigation rates or high reinsurance costs, including enacting coverage restrictions and increasing rates. OIR approved 105 rate changes, 90 of which were for rate increases, over the last year, with 55 of those for rate increases of more than 10%. Stakeholders have warned that without legislative reforms, rates will continue to increase and consumers may be unable to find coverage in the private market.
