As consumer complaints have apparently mounted over unpaid hurricane losses, Florida’s top insurance regulator and some lawmakers are signaling new scrutiny on insurance carriers’ claims-handling and other practices.
Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky late last week posted a memo, demanding more data from carriers and warning insurers that improperly handled storm claims involving concurrent causation – those denied due to the presence of both wind and flood damage – “will result in administrative action and restitution to the consumer.”
“While the office recognizes case law surrounding concurrent causation and anti-concurrent causation policy language, it is not a mechanism to handle claims poorly,” Yaworsky said in the memo.
He noted that the state Department of Financial Services has received “a significant number” of consumer c