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Dear Florida Insurance Consumers, When your insurance rates go higher, the customer service gets worse, and your fair claim treatment is non existent.  Please remember your Florida legislatures that supported the insurance lobby over you. This chart outlines the status and descriptions of key property insurance legislation so far, including which bills would benefit insurers.…

Businessowners Policies, traditionally referred to simply as “BOPs,” were introduced in 1976 and significantly revised in 1987. The BOP evolved gradually from the 1987 revisions to include risk classification and sizes not contemplated in the original or “first revision” editions of the form. Additionally, many insurance carriers have built upon the Insurance Services Office’s (ISO’s)…

A Leon County Circuit Court judge has put Coral Insurance into receivership , effectively ending the company’s operations. Hollywood-based Coral has an agreement with Security First Insurance and MacNeill Group to provide replacement coverage for its policyholders. The Florida Department of Financial Services is the receiver for the company. “Our top priority is to help…

More than 1 million customers will be affected Little more than two weeks after state regulators turned down its request for a 47.1 percent rate hike, State Farm announced Tuesday it would stop offering property insurance in Florida. And although policy holders will have up to two years to find another insurer, Gov. Charlie Crist…

A Louisiana judge has ordered Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to pay $92.8 million to 18,573 policyholders in the state whose claims from damage caused by Hurricane Katrina were not adjusted on time. The state-sponsored insurer of last resort is expected to appeal the judgment by Jefferson Parish Judge Henry Sullivan, according to the Times-Picayune…

Some businesses have very stable property insurance needs as the value of their non-building property doesn’t vary much during the year. For example, an accountant’s office will have furniture, telephones, computers, reference books, and so on. The replacement costs of these items won’t be much different in July than they were in April. Other types…

If a claim dispute arises, you should always file a complaint with your state insurance regulatory agency. Don’t go into great detail – just give them the very basic issues in dispute. To find your state regulator online go to www.naic.org. The agency may not get you the help you need, but it’s still important…

TALLAHASSEE– Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink today released the following statement in response to the Office of Insurance Regulation’s (OIR) Consent Order with People’s Trust Insurance Company: “The Office of Insurance Regulation’s Consent Order with People’s Trust Insurance Company shows that People’s Trust committed numerous violations of the laws designed to protect Florida’s insurance…

Suffering major damage to a home is a traumatic event for any family. The experience brings shock, worry about family members and pets, grief at the loss of treasured possessions, and stress about the overwhelming task of replacing it all. Right on the heels of these emotions comes a more immediate question: Where will the family live now, and how will they pay for it? Fortunately, standard homeowner’s policies provide coverage for loss of use of a home.

The standard policy contains three Loss of Use coverages: Additional Living Expense, Fair Rental Value, and Civil Authority Prohibits Use. Additional Living Expense coverage pays for the homeowner’s necessary increase in living expenses when the home, damaged by a covered cause of loss, becomes unfit to live in. For example, assume that a severe windstorm knocks a tree into a home’s upstairs. It wrecks three bedrooms and two bathrooms, causing pipes to break and damaging electrical wiring. Since the policy covers windstorm damage and the home is unsafe for the family to occupy, this coverage will pay the extra amount the family must spend to live elsewhere for a period of time. However, the insurance company will pay only the amount necessary for the family to maintain its normal standard of living. If the family was not living in a luxury condo before the loss, the company will not pay for them to live in one after. The company will pay for the shortest period of time necessary to repair or replace the damaged property or to permanently relocate.