The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund will not have to pay some $30 million to Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co., after th
e carrier settled a civil suit that alleged the insurer had backdated claims to boost reimbursement from the fund.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Tuesday that Fort Lauder
dale-based Universal must pay a $4 million fine — plus attorney fees — for allegedly s
ubmitting ineligible Cat Fund claims that it said were the result of 2017’s Hurricane Irma.
“Following a whistleblower lawsuit filed in Leon County, the Office of the Attorney General launched its own investigation into UPCIC to
ensure that the claims submitted by the company were, in fact, caused by Hurricane Irma,” the AG’s office said in a news release. “During the
course of that investigation, numerous unrelated claims were identified in the submissions from UPCIC to the FHCF. As a result, the compa
sement for those claims, lowering the FHCF payout from Hurricane Irma to UPCIC by more than $30 million.”
Uthmeier said it was a case of “insurance fraud,” but Universal officials strongly disputed that Wednesday. They said the claims had be
en resolved through the Cat Fund’s standard review of claims after six years.
The fund, a layer of state-backed reinsurance, has “a thorough final analysis known as commutation in which the fund and insurer evaluate
loss data to determine a full and final settlement,” Universal said in a statement. “
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This process, which is standard for all insurers, resulted in the parties’ mutual commutation agreement.”
The AG’s statement acknowledged that the issues had been addressed through UPCIC’s “periodic interim loss reports and by the final d
etermination of its reimbursable losses through commutation.”
The unnamed whistleblower, a Universal employee who left the company in 2018 and filed suit in 2020, was not familiar with the fund’s rep
orting procedures and the accusations contained fundamental inaccuracies, the company noted. The whistleblower’s suit in Leon County court is sealed and is not available online.
The settlement agreement notes that the carrier has 10 days to pay $6.5 million, which includes $2.4 million in attorney fees. Universal’s chief
strategy officer, Arash Soleimani, said in an email that the settlement agreement “includes among its terms a payment as part of the partie
s’ mutual decision that the case should be dismissed and the matter concluded.”
