The Florida House subcommittee on insurance advanced two hotly debated bills Thursday, one supported by insurance agents but another that was opposed by agents and carriers alike.
And another subcommittee voted to repeal the auto insurance personal injury protection law and increase the minimum liability coverage limits. But it’s far from certain if House Bill 1181 or the Senate version will pass both chambers of the Legislature. Gov. Ron DeSantis seems set to veto the PIP measure if it does pass.
On property insurance, the House Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on insurance and banking approved a new version of House Bill 643, by Rep. John Snyder, a payroll and staffing company owner. The bill, if it is signed into law, would ease the workload for agents searching for surplus lines coverage for hard-to-place properties, by repealing the “diligent effort” currently required by state law. The statute now requires agents to seek coverage from at least three admitted carriers before writing with a surplus lines insurer. That would be removed under the bill.
The Florida Association of Insurance Agents has supported that part of the bill.
“The diligent effort requirement has just been a bureaucratic roadblock that has added delays,” B.G. Murphy, government affairs director for FAIA, said after the meeting.
Well-known plaintiffs’ attorney Chip Merlin argued against the bill, contending that it would weaken consumer protections by allowing insurance agents to move policyholders too quickly to more expensive and less-regulated surplus lines.
“This bill favors those companies that do not want to invest in the admitted market in Florida,” Merlin said in the meeting.
An earlier version of the bill also would have altered the statutory requirement that agents be appointed with three carriers before writing commercial residential policies with the state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Agents would be able to attest that they have access to markets through a broker. That section was removed from the pared-down House committee substitute adopted Thursday, but it remains in a Senate bill, SB 1184.
The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee has approved that bill, and it is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A part of HB 643 that saw extensive debate in the House subcommittee on Thursday would give Citizens’ policyholders an upfront option on litigation versus state-managed arbitration in claims disputes. Current law allows either Citizens or the insured to choose, post-claim, when a dispute can be decided by the Florida Department of Administrative Hearings, a state agency that is best known for arbitrating disputes between businesses and state agencies over enforcement actions.
