Latest Florida Headlines
All the headlines from our Florida Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Florida Casino Boat Fire that Killed 1 Under Investigation
Jan 17 2018 // A casino company said Monday it never had a problem with the shuttle boat that burst into flames off Florida’s Gulf Coast, leading to the death of a female passenger. Tropical Breeze Casino spokeswoman Beth Fifer...
Report Shows Florida AOB Abuse Worsening as Lawmakers Consider Reforms
Jan 17 2018 // The 2018 Florida Legislative Session is underway, and lawmakers have wasted no time taking up legislation to address the assignment of benefits crisis plaguing the state. While they debate which reform option to back,...
Report: Florida Nursing Home Temperatures After Irma Reached Sweltering Level
Jan 12 2018 // Florida regulators say temperatures rose to 99 degrees (37 Celsius) in a sweltering nursing home under investigation for the deaths of 12 residents after Hurricane Irma. A Sun Sentinel report says a document filed by the...
Verisk’s ISO Personal Lines Program Targets $40 Billion Private Flood Insurance Market
Jan 11 2018 // Things just got a bit easier for private personal lines insurance carriers wanting to enter the flood insurance market. Through its ISO subsidiary, data analytics firm Verisk has launched a new personal lines flood...
Main Street America Group in Florida Promotes Osman to VP of Personal Lines
Jan 11 2018 // The Main Street America Group has promoted Darryl Osman to vice president of personal lines. Osman remains based at the company’s home office in Jacksonville, Fla., and reports to Dan Gaynor, the company’s...
Florida Appeals Court, Regulator Reject Policy Language Aimed at Curbing AOB Abuse
Jan 10 2018 // A Florida appeals court has sided with the state’s insurance regulator in rejecting policy language filed by a Florida homeowners insurer to restrict the use of assignment of benefits. The decision could have a...
Schoolcraft Joins Iroquois South in Florida
Jan 10 2018 // The Iroquois Group announced that Joya Schoolcraft has joined the company as its second regional manager for Florida. Schoolcraft has been associated with Iroquois in various capacities for several decades. In 1992, she...
Florida Apartment Building Gutted by Massive Fire
Jan 10 2018 // More than a dozen people lost their home when a massive fire gutted a Florida apartment building. Roughly 75 firefighters from four agencies battled the fast-moving blaze in Orange Park on Saturday. It took them nearly an...
Coastal Sea Rise Threatening Florida’s Historic Resources
Jan 9 2018 // The Castillo de San Marcos withstood two sieges in 330 years and changed hands five times, but its latest invader – the rising Atlantic Ocean – threatens to erode the historic St. Augustine fortress. The coquina shell...
Declarations
Jan 8 2018 // No Consensus “Until we have some kind of a consensus, or there’s an outcry from everyday business people, it just seems the issue languishes.” — Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says there is no...
Florida’s Citizens Moves on From 2017, Expects Policy Count Growth in 2018
Jan 8 2018 // Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the Florida state-run insurer of last resort, is anticipating its policyholder count will increase in 2018 for the first time since its efforts to shed policies through depopulation began...
Epic Winter Storm Brings Car Wrecks, Broken Water Mains, Power Outages to Southeast
Jan 5 2018 // A brutal winter storm smacked the coastal Southeast with a rare blast of snow and ice Wednesday, hitting parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with their heaviest snowfall in nearly three decades. The same system...
Florida Supreme Court Ruling to Have Big Impact on Duty to Defend Construction Cases
Jan 4 2018 // A recent case out of the Florida Supreme Court will likely have a big impact on the duty of insurers to defend Florida construction cases. The case, Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance...
Outages, Flooding Expected as Giant Snow and Ice ‘Bomb’ Targets Eastern States
Jan 3 2018 // The worst storm of the winter season has knocked out power to thousands and canceled almost 3,000 flights. Next it threatens to bring more snow, ice and cold from Florida to Nova Scotia, including New York and...
Seeman Holtz Property & Casualty Acquires J & A Insurance of Florida
Jan 3 2018 // Florida-based Seeman Holtz Property & Casualty, Inc. has acquired J & A Insurance and More, Inc., headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. Led by Jacqueline Estevez and her team, the company has offered...
Florida Lawmakers to Reconsider Texting While Driving Ban
Jan 3 2018 // Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Wysocky says it is hard to separate texting drivers from drunken drivers as he cruises down a suburban interstate highway. Both weave. They speed up and slow down for no obvious reason and...
Florida Could Be Close to a Real Estate Reckoning
Jan 2 2018 // Ross Hancock sold his four-bedroom house in Coral Gables, a city of pastel luxury at the edge of Miami, because he was worried that sea-level rise would eventually hurt his property’s value. He and his wife, Darlene,...
Top Insurance Journal Southeast Stories of 2017
Dec 29 2017 // It was another busy year in the Southeast with storms, workers’ comp, and carrier insolvencies dominating the headlines. Here’s a look back at some of the stories that attracted the most readers in...
Assignment of Benefits Abuse Tops Florida News for 2017
Dec 29 2017 // Florida’s ongoing battle with assignment of benefits (AOB) claims abuse was not a new topic in 2017, but it was certainly one of the hottest ones for Southeast readers. From threats of insurer ratings downgrades...
Sugary Sports Beans, Uber Divorce Claims Among Chamber’s ‘Most Ridiculous’ Lawsuits of 2017
Dec 28 2017 // A lawsuit by a woman claiming she was deceived about the amount of sugar in an exercise supplement called Sport Beans tops the list of what a top U.S. business lobby sees as the “most ridiculous” lawsuits of...
