News & Resources

Long-term care insurance has received a lot of press coverage lately. Insurers are getting out of the market; companies holding on are asking for double-digit rate hikes. And as that big chunk of Americans, the Baby Boomers, reach retirement age, industry insiders were hoping more people would buy long-term care policies for themselves or for their Boomer parents. The market conditions have put a damper on those hopes. Market conditions may also be responsible for an increase in long-term care insurance claim denials.

In our last post, we were talking about the “file and use” and “use and file” rate approval rules. Insurance companies in Florida may elect to use either, but the industry complains that the “use and file” rule is meaningless, because the Office of Insurance Regulation rarely approves the rate change. Insurers must then reimburse their policyholders for premiums collected at the proposed, but disapproved rate.

Last year, Florida lawmakers took a step toward deregulating commercial motor vehicle insurance; this year, some legislators hope to go even farther. A bill that passed out of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee this week would allow insurance companies to offer a number of different commercial insurance products before the rates are approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation.

An international insurance company is sponsoring a golf tournament in South Florida this weekend, and a group of Holocaust survivors and their families are planning to be there. Not in the stands, though; they plan to be protesting. The company, Allianz, owes them thousands of dollars for insurance claims made by family members who died at the hands of the Nazis. The insurer disagrees.

A settlement between environmental groups and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should put the brakes on development in Florida’s hurricane-vulnerable coastal areas, according to the organizations. In their lawsuit against the federal agency, the National Wildlife Federation and Florida Wildlife Federation had alleged that managers at FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program failed to study specific environmental impacts of coastal developments before approving flood insurance.

The Florida Legislature is once again considering changes to the state’s no-fault auto insurance law. The focus of at least one proposal is limiting attorney fees in personal injury protection (PIP) suits. Insurance companies say the current law encourages high lawyer fees in even low-value injury suits. Personal injury attorneys counter that the measure will limit accident victims’ ability to go to court to demand their benefits.

A questionable, if not illegal, insurance practice came up in a recent Jacksonville case. It started as a straightforward injury claim from a car accident, an admission of fault and a jury award. When the dust settles, it may be a cause célèbre for consumer advocates and insurance attorneys.

Late last month, a group of Holocaust survivors’ efforts to have their dispute with an Italian life insurance company heard in court ended in defeat when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal. It was the second time the lead plaintiff had petitioned the Court to appeal his claim. Now it appears that only Congress can act to allow the survivors to sue the insurance company. There they face millions of dollars in insurance company lobbying.

A complicated Florida case involving homeowners, developers, a commercial general liability insurance company and Chinese drywall has hit another road block. The homeowners and developers had filed a complaint earlier this year, alleging the insurance company denied their claim in bad faith. The court ruled against them. In the present case, the court has told them that the insurance company should not cover the claim at all. Just two months after they moved into their […]

The world’s second-largest reinsurance company announced this week that natural catastrophe losses rose from $22.7 billion in 2009 to $31 billion in the first 11 months of 2010. Man-made disasters — notably British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and the ensuing oil spill — have spurred about $5 billion in claims. Florida residents will not be surprised to hear that hurricane losses this year have been relatively low, resulting in a less egregious increase in insurance losses than initially expected.