PIP Bill Moves on to Florida Senate Healthcare Committee

After revising a bill to extend the Florida no-fault auto insurance system to remove a proposed medical fee schedule, the Senate has passed it on to the Healthcare Committee for further consideration.

Members of the Florida Independent Insurance Agents attending the Legislative “Fly-In” visited legislators in Tallahassee March 30 and voiced their support for SB2112, which addresses problems with medical care; SB 2114, the main reform bill; and SB 2116, which deals with specific problems with related public records.

In the House, FAIA supports the main reform package found in PCB IN 06-03 by the House Insurance Committee and HB 591 by Rep. David Rivera, dealing with PIP fraud.

“Florida’s auto market is extremely healthy and very competitive,” Laura Pearce, FAIA director of Government Affairs told everyone during her briefing about Florida’s no-fault auto law.

She said FAIA’s position is that PIP suffers from excess attorney involvement for what is supposed to be a no-fault system. Health care costs continue to rise and fraud is increasing.

In answer, the 2003 Legislature placed the PIP law under sunset; it goes out of existence Oct. 1, 2007, unless reenacted prior to Oct. 1. In effect, the Legislature said, ” … fix it or get rid of it.”

Committees in both the Senate and House have spent the last year looking at options. Pearce said that while there are those, primarily the trial bar and medical community, who think the system does not need to change. FAIA believes the PIP system can and must be reformed.

Pearce said the packages of bills address attorney fees by removing the expensive “contingency fee multiplier” that she said often results in extravagant attorney fee awards in very minor cases.

The bills address fraud by giving prosecutors new tools and increasing penalties. And finally, they put a rein on some health care costs, while, at the same time, increasing coverage for emergency hospital care.

While the agents support the no-fault reforms as proposed, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America would like to see more comprehensive reforms, including a medical fee schedule and additional litigation controls to curb frivolous lawsuits.

“Now is the time to make significant reform to the no-fault system,” William Stander, PCI assistant vice president and regional manager said. “This is an opportunity to put the no-fault system back on the road to achieving its original purpose.

“We are urging lawmakers to go beyond addressing the issue of fraud and adopt provisions that will hold down legal costs and address medical expenses,” he said. “Some of the key elements necessary to fix the system include the adoption of a stronger verbal threshold, cost containment of medical expense benefits through a revised dispute resolution process that is more streamlined, the adoption of fee schedules and treatment protocols that bring consistency and certainty to medical costs,” Stander concluded.

Topics Florida Fraud Politics