Latest Florida Headlines
All the headlines from our Florida Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Florida Coast Clean Up After Matthew Underway
Oct 9 2016 // Joan Galasso walked through the empty wreck of the waterfront seafood restaurant she and her husband started a quarter-century ago and was horrified. Hurricane Matthew had ripped away the deck where tourists had gathered...
Matthew Death Toll in Southeast Rises
Oct 9 2016 // More than 1.5 million people are still without power as Matthew on Sunday brought Hurricane-force wind gusts and flooding to the outer banks of North Carolina, where the storm left at least seven dead. Almost 423,000 homes...
Hurricane Matthew More Hype Than Bite So Far But Insurers, Agents Remain on Alert
Oct 7 2016 // While Hurricane Matthew rages along Florida’s coast, with the end potentially still hours away, the insurance industry seems to be breathing a sigh of relief, thus far. As of Friday morning, Matthew seemed to have...
Fitch: Matthew Losses Manageable for Florida Property Insurers
Oct 7 2016 // Hurricane Matthew will pressure the earnings of some insurance underwriters in Florida and other southeast states but is not expected to present a major capital challenge, Fitch Ratings says. Fitch estimates that if the...
Florida Gov: Some 600,000 Florida Homes Without Power Due to Hurricane
Oct 7 2016 // About 600,000 Florida homes were without power on Friday due to Hurricane Matthew and more outages were likely, Governor Rick Scott told a news conference, as the storm moved near the state’s Atlantic coast on a...
Hurricane Matthew Forces Millions to Evacuate Along Southeast Coast
Oct 7 2016 // Millions of people in the U.S. southeast were ordered to flee as Hurricane Matthew, set to become the strongest storm to hit the country since 2005, headed toward Florida’s East Coast after leaving hundreds dead in...
Hurricane Matthew Heads to Florida; Losses Could Reach $15 Billion
Oct 6 2016 // Hurricane Matthew has thousands fleeing the U.S. Southeast where it’s expected to batter the coastline and threaten electricity supplies to more than 1 million people in Florida. Potential losses are seen as high as...
Florida Approves 97K Policies for December Take-Outs from Citizens
Oct 6 2016 // The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has approved a total of 97,390 policies for December take-outs from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation by the following companies. December 20, 2016 Personal...
South Carolina, Florida Order Evacuations as Hurricane Matthew Approaches Southeast
Oct 5 2016 // The governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have ordered a State of Emergency for each of their respective states as Hurricane Matthew makes its way up the Southeast coast after battering Haiti and Cuba. The...
Marsh & McLennan Acquires Florida-Based Vero Insurance
Oct 5 2016 // Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC (MMA), the middle market agency subsidiary of Marsh, has acquired Vero Insurance, Inc., a Vero Beach, Florida-based independent agency specializing in private client insurance services....
Cunningham to Lead Florida-Based SLB Insurance’s New Environmental Division
Oct 5 2016 // SLB Insurance Group of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has hired Jeffrey Cunningham to lead its new Environmental Insurance division. Cunningham started the new Environmental division for SLB’s Wholesale Insurance Brokerage...
Florida Approves Increases for Citizens Commercial Property Rates
Oct 4 2016 // The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has issued an order establishing the 2017 commercial property rates for Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Rates are going up for all accounts except the Commercial...
Florida Watching Hurricane Matthew, Governor Urges Residents to Prepare
Oct 3 2016 // The GOES East satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016 at 2:45 p.m. EDT, shows Hurricane Matthew in the Caribbean Sea about 190 miles northeast of...
Florida Regulators Approve Rate Increase for Citizens Policyholders
Oct 3 2016 // Rates are going up for many Florida homeowners. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has approved a 6.4 percent overall rate increase for 2017 for Citizens Property Insurance Corp. homeowners’ multiperil...
Hurricane Hermine Declared Major Disaster; Federal Funds Available to Florida
Sep 30 2016 // President Barack Obama has officially declared a major disaster for areas in Florida affected by Hurricane Hermine. A news release says Obama signed the disaster declaration Wednesday. The president’s action makes...
Florida Governor Issues Emergency Rule on Public Notice of Pollution Events
Sep 29 2016 // Florida Gov. Rick Scott has issued an emergency rule requiring public notification of pollution events within 24 hours, a move that comes after it took weeks to notify local residents about a fertilizer plant that leaked...
Florida Approves 14.5% Workers’ Comp Rate Hike in Response to Court Rulings
Sep 27 2016 // The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has given contingent approval for an overall statewide workers’ compensation rate increase of 14.5 percent to take effect Dec. 1, 2016. The rate increase is in...
Stanford Opens Newest Florida Brightway Office in Jacksonville
Sep 27 2016 // Brightway Insurance has expanded its network of insurance retail locations in Jacksonville, Fla., with the addition of insurance agent and new Brightway Agency Owner Anne Stanford, who opened the company’s newest...
Florida Residents Near Sinkhole Filled with Fertilizer File Federal Lawsuit
Sep 26 2016 // A federal lawsuit was filed late Thursday by three central Florida residents who live near a fertilizer plant where more than 200 million gallons of contaminated wastewater leaked into one of the state’s main...
Florida Gov Orders Investigation into St. Petersburg Sewage Spill
Sep 23 2016 // Gov. Rick Scott has ordered the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to investigate a sewage spill in St. Petersburg. Heavy rain during Hurricane Hermine overloaded the city’s sewer systems, sending...
