Floridians are no strangers to bad weather. Our location makes us a prime target for hurricanes, year in and year out. Damage from windstorms and other catastrophic events can lead to large numbers of insurance claims. Fortunately, the last several hurricane seasons have been rather quiet.
Historians differ on the start date of the Holocaust. The Simon Wiesenthal Center says it began when Adolph Hitler was became Chancellor of Germany. Others say it that Kristallnacht, the infamous “night of broken glass” in November 1938, was the opening salvo of the Nazis’ overt war on the Jews and other “undesirables” of Europe. Either way, by the end of the war in May 1945, the Nazis had murdered 11 million civilians.
We are talking about a small town — not in Florida — that recently received the bad news that its insurance company is canceling coverage for the police department and its vehicles. The town council has asked six insurance companies for quotes, but as of this writing, just two weeks away from the cancellation date, there has been no response.
An insurance company’s unusual move may have put it smack in the middle of a local political skirmish. This is not happening in Florida, but the situation brings up interesting questions about insurance coverage of public entities and policy cancellations in general.
In the past few months, Florida and six other states have entered into settlement agreements with three life insurance companies regarding their failure to do due diligence in identifying deceased insureds and their beneficiaries. The states’ efforts began a couple of years ago and have already resulted in a number of insurers paying multi-million dollar settlements, revising internal processes or both. See our Oct. 12, 2012, post for information about the deal reached with Nationwide Financial Services Inc.
The federal shutdown may have motivated the Federal Emergency Management Agency to extend the deadline for Superstorm Sandy victims to file an important insurance form. Pressure from Congress may have helped, too: Realizing that many of their constituents may not have the information needed for the form and that some may not even know about either the form or the deadline, 22 senators and representatives signed a letter to FEMA asking for an extension.
The Miami Herald reported recently that a group of Florida seventh-graders were staging a hurricane simulation. They would learn how to prepare for and recover from a storm. For those of us who have been in Florida for a while, the idea of having to simulate a hurricane sounds a little odd, until you realize that these kids have not experienced a major storm in their young lives — at least, not one they remember.
After our multi-post discussion of the National Flood Insurance Program and rising premiums for Florida homeowners, we came across a story about a couple of flood insurance coverage issues that we thought worth sharing. The story does not involve Florida property owners, but it does involve hurricane-damaged homes, something many of us know well.
We are wrapping up our discussion of a recent Florida Court of Appeal decision. An auto insurance company had denied coverage to a man who had been injured in a golf cart accident. The insured was at fault, but he had been driving a modified golf cart, one that could exceed the average 20 mph maximum speed and, so, could be driven on public roads.
We are still talking about a recent Florida court of appeal decision in an auto insurance case. The decision is noteworthy because it involves golf carts — specifically, a modified golf cart driven on a public road. Generally, the only way to get a golf cart to go above 20 miles an hour is to make some modifications. The owner of the insured in this case had done just that, ostensibly so he could drive on public roads.
