Latest Florida Headlines
All the headlines from our Florida Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Jul 5 2010 // 77.2% In most hurricane-prone states, homeowners have few choices for insurance coverage, with just eight property and casualty insurers in each state controlling up to 77.2 percent of the market share, according to Weiss...
Florida Family’s Corrigan Receives Insurance Council Honor
Jul 2 2010 // Peter Corrigan, president of Florida Family Insurance Co., was recently presented with the Florida Insurance Council’s 2010 Wade E. Holland, Jr. Distinguished Service Award during the trade association’s annual...
Special Reuters Report: Oil Spill a Gusher for Lawyers; Litigation May Take Years
Jun 30 2010 // BP payout should far exceed what Exxon spent on Valdez The company’s $20 billion fund may not be enough Accountability may take years if not decades to assess Many federal laws allow civil, criminal liability From a...
Homeowners Offered Few Insurance Choices in Hurricane States
Jun 28 2010 // In most hurricane-prone states, homeowners have few choices of insurance coverage, with just eight property and casualty insurers in each state controlling up to 77.2 percent of the market share, according to Weiss...
Towers Watson Boosts Florida Operations with Betz, Stofko
Jun 24 2010 // Strengthening its presence in the Florida property/ casualty market, global professional services company Towers Watson has appointed two industry veterans with experience in the state. Robert Betz has been named practice...
Florida Jury Awards $2.4 Million in First Chinese Drywall Trial
Jun 23 2010 // A Florida couple who fled their dream home because of foul-smelling, ruinous Chinese drywall was awarded $2.4 million in damages last Friday in America’s first jury trial over the defective wallboard that could have...
Florida Court Says Fishermen Can Sue Polluter; Is BP Next?
Jun 23 2010 // With BP’s offshore oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico as a backdrop, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that commercial fishermen can sue a company that discharged pollutants into Tampa Bay for lost income and profits...
Safety Concerns Rise As Golf Carts Take to the Streets
Jun 22 2010 // When Shannon Wiegert bought the new, bright red golf cart for scooting around car shows, he didn’t think to ask about safety features on the slow-moving vehicle. And when his little girl begged his older daughter for...
Florida Approves MedMal Direct for Sale of Malpractice Insurance
Jun 22 2010 // Jacksonville-based MedMal Direct Insurance Co. has officially launched operations as a medical malpractice insurance company in Florida. The company, which sells insurance directly to physicians community without the use...
Florida Orders Infinity Surety to Halt Operations in State
Jun 21 2010 // Florida insurance regulators have ordered a Texas surety insurance firm, Infinity Surety, to halt all business in Florida. Officials say the insurer was never authorized to sell in Florida. The Florida Office of Insurance...
Florida Court Rejects $11 Million Award Against Mitsubishi
Jun 21 2010 // A Maine couple shouldn’t receive $11 million from Mitsubishi Motors for the 2004 death of their son, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled last week. In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court threw out the 2008 jury...
Declarations
Jun 21 2010 // Not Up to Speed “I don’t think speed is in your vocabulary yet. People are just trying to survive.” —Florida CFO Alex Sink telling BP senior VP Bob Fryar his company is not moving quickly enough to pay...
Florida Deregulates Certain Commercial, Professional Liability Lines for Pricing
Jun 21 2010 // Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has signed into law a bill exempting certain commercial and professional liability insurance rates from state review prior to use. Current state law exempts only those policies with annual...
MGAs Key to Florida’s Property Market, Say Officials, Execs
Jun 21 2010 // Several of Florida’s insurers with affiliated managing general agencies (MGAs) have come in for criticism recently but there is no widespread problem with the MGA model, regulators and insurance executives agree. In...
Florida Reinsurance Prices Decline 10% But Challenges Remain at Renewal
Jun 21 2010 // Reinsurance pricing at the June 1 Florida renewal are down by 10 percent to 12 percent on average, on a year-over-year risk adjusted basis. That’s according to reinsurance intermediary Guy Carpenter & Co., which...
FAIA’s Grady: Florida Needs to Improve Its Insurance Reputation
Jun 21 2010 // The following are excerpts from a wide-ranging interview by Insurance Journal’s Andy Simpson with Jeff Grady, president and CEO, Florida Association of Insurance Agents, from Grady’s Tallahassee...
Florida Market Still Frustrates Surplus Brokers
Jun 21 2010 // It has been quiet on the oceanfront in Florida in terms of hurricanes and tropical storms the past few years. However, the low catastrophe frequency has contributed to an extremely soft and competitive insurance market for...
Latin Agent Groups Growing, Starting Up, Going ‘Mainstream’
Jun 21 2010 // Florida Group Stresses Educational Offerings, Serving Non-Latin Agents Following the success of agents in Florida and California, a group of New York insurance agents has launched a new trade group for Latin insurance...
Florida Chief McCarty Calls for ‘Substantive Change’ in Property Market
Jun 21 2010 // Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty thinks the time has come for the private insurance industry and public leaders to move beyond debating regulation of insurance rates and “be open and willing to make...
