TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The state’s property insurance disaster is costing many Floridians hundreds of {dollars} a yr in elevated premiums.
Florida has a brand new insurance commissioner, however can he do something to assist?
8 On Your Side Investigator Mahsa Saeidi has been following the disaster for months, and spoke to these acquainted with the matter on Michael Yaworsky’s first day on the job.
Florida’s insurance commissioner is accountable for approving or denying charge hikes. The place is taken into account to be one of many hardest jobs within the state. It had been vacant since December.
On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis nominated Yaworsky for the function. He will function Interim Commissioner till he will get ultimate approval from the Financial Services Commission, which ought to occur quickly.
Yaworsky will likely be accountable for regulating insurers, at a time when so many corporations have failed or left the state. There have been blended reactions to his appointment, however Yaworsky is not any stranger to the Office of Insurance Regulation. For almost 5 years, he served as Chief of Staff to Florida’s Former Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier.
In December, Altmaier stepped down the day after lawmakers authorized sweeping adjustments to the market in particular session.
State Rep. Hillary Cassel, a Democrat from Broward County, is a freshmen in the home.
As an legal professional, she’s spent years representing householders suing their insurance corporations.
“I have concerns with whether or not he’s going to be able to .. independent review of really what’s wrong,” Cassel mentioned. “There’s an extensive amount of data that is collected by OIR that really hasn’t been reviewed nor has it been provided.”
8 On Your Side additionally spoke with Hillsborough County Commissioner Michael Owen.
“I think the national search is a mistake. I think we needed to pick someone in Florida that understands the insurance woes that we’ve had in Florida,” Owen mentioned.
Owen mentioned his personal charges have gone up $300, however he thinks Florida is now headed in the best path.
“Talk about some of the things that homeowners can do, rather than get crown molding maybe you’ll need to pay for a new roof that’ll help your policy out. We need to do more workshops, we need to talk about resilience and mitigation and just discuss some things that we can do to drive down the insurance,” mentioned Owen.
8 On Your Side additionally obtained a press release from Joseph Petrelli, the president of the scores company Demotech.
“Demotech, Inc. wishes interim Commissioner of Insurance Mike Yaworsky good luck in his new
role. As we have since 1996, we support the Florida property insurance marketplace by
assigning Financial Stability Ratings ® and would be pleased to share our three decades of
experience and expertise on the critical role of catastrophe reinsurance on the business models of Florida focused insurers.”
We are additionally listening to from the group that represents roofers.
“The Restoration Association of Florida is hopeful that the new incoming OIR Commissioner will clean up the poor habits of the old regime and actually do what the office is supposed to do, regulate insurance companies. The old regime was rubber stamping double digit rate hikes without any financial analysis from the insurance company. Where are the public hearings of all rate increases over 15%? You guessed it, they don’t exist. SB 76 in 2021 stated that all insurance carriers would be transparent in their financial releases, breaking down their expenses by Jan 1, 2022. What did David Altmaier do? He writes to all carriers in a letter dated in April of 2022 instructing them to wait until next year…!? All so they can hold back the data from consumers/voters/policyholders, while they passed 2 more reforms on property insurance (May 26th for SB 2D and Dec 16th for SB 2A), where nothing in either bill reduces rates for policyholders of Florida. I feel like all this a scam and our own OIR was a major player in all this. At the end of the day, no rate reductions and much less policy coverages for the homeowners. Truly a sad situation. Although we have little hope for major change, time will tell,” mentioned spokesman Richie Kidwell.