Latest Florida Headlines
All the headlines from our Florida Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Reynolds Named President and CEO of Gulfstream P/C
Jan 9 2015 // Gulfstream Property and Casualty Insurance Co., a regional property carrier providing homeowners, renters, condominium and fire coverage in five states, has appointed industry veteran Douglas W. Reynolds as president and...
Florida PIP Report Shows Reduction in Rates and Fraud
Jan 9 2015 // Florida’s attempt to lower the cost of personal injury protection (PIP) automobile coverage is making progress as insurers’ rates have declined due in part to lower losses and fewer fraudulent claims. The...
FEMA Found to Have Overpaid Florida Residents by $177M
Jan 7 2015 // The federal agency that provides grants to states following a major catastrophe is under fire for providing Florida residents an estimated $177 million in funds that should have been covered by private insurers. A recent...
Florida’s Citizens Drops Coverage Limits on High-Value Properties
Jan 6 2015 // Florida’s state-backed property insurer is lowering the amount of coverage it provides for high-value properties from $1 million to $900,000, per a 2013 law change. Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is implementing...
Hub International Acquires Florida’s Smith Watson Parker Insurance
Jan 5 2015 // Global insurance broker Hub International Limited said it has acquired the assets of Smith Watson Parker Insurance, a Hollywood, Florida-based independent insurance brokerage. Terms of the acquisition were not...
Pill Mill Law Shifts Prescriptions From Opioids to Weaker Meds: WCRI
Dec 31 2014 // A law banning physicians from dispensing certain strong opioids discouraged the doctors from prescribing those drugs at all, according to a new study, which also found that the doctors dispensed weaker nonsteroidal...
Florida Equine Center Settles with Horse Feed Maker Over Poisonings
Dec 31 2014 // A Florida equestrian center where 22 horses were poisoned by tainted feed has reached a settlement with the company that produced and sold the feed. Two horses had to be euthanized last Friday, bringing the death toll at...
Most Popular Insurance Journal Southeast Stories of 2014
Dec 31 2014 // In 2014, Southeast readers of InsuranceJournal.com made news about Florida insurers, courts and politics along with North Carolina storms and homeowners insurance among the most popular stories of the year. With an...
Florida Appeals Court Ruling Opens Door for Cruise Line Malpractice Suits
Dec 24 2014 // Pasquale Vaglio, a retired New York City policeman and Korean War veteran, was on the cruise of a lifetime with 18 family members in the summer of 2001 aboard Royal Caribbean’s “Explorer of the Seas.”...
Florida Floating Home Owner Loses Another Round in Damages Battle
Dec 24 2014 // A South Florida man who two years ago won a U.S. Supreme Court case over the difference between a floating home and a vessel has lost a legal battle against the city of Riviera Beach. A federal jury last week sided with...
Florida Touts Workers’ Comp Market Competition But Warns on Court Rulings
Dec 23 2014 // Florida’s workers’ compensation market remains competitive and well-capitalized, with loss ratios that are among the lowest among larger states, according to the latest report from the state’s insurance...
Homeowners Choice Grabs 36,000 Policies from Florida’s Citizens
Dec 23 2014 // Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty Insurance Co. Inc. said it has assumed 36,000 policies from Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp., of which an estimated 30,000 are wind-only. The assumptions,...
Nursing Home Liabilities Transfer Could Be Fraud: Judge
Dec 17 2014 // The owners of a multistate chain of nursing homes may have committed fraud by transferring liabilities to a shell company that later lost more than $2 billion in jury verdicts to families who claimed relatives died of...
Progressive Insurance Acquiring Homeowners Group ASI for $875M
Dec 16 2014 // Auto insurance giant Progressive Insurance is enhancing its homeowners insurance offerings by acquiring controlling interest in a Florida-based group of insurers now selling homeowners, renters, condo, umbrella, flood and...
Florida’s Universal Insurance Raises $19M in Stock Deal
Dec 15 2014 // Florida’s largest private insurer has raised $19 million through a privately negotiated stock deal with an investment firm that specializes in natural catastrophe reinsurance and weather risk. Universal Holdings Inc...
InsureZone Agency Network Enters Florida
Dec 15 2014 // Fort Worth, Texas-based InsureZone, a national brokerage and agency network, has launched operations in Florida. The new operation, Florida InsureZone Direct (IZD), is targeting small-to-midsized insurance agencies,...
People – Southeast
Dec 15 2014 // The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) has named Hilary Segura and Logan McFaddin to its state government relations team. Segura and McFaddin assume regional staff duties overseeing states in the...
Florida Approves 5.2% Rate Cut for Workers’ Comp
Dec 15 2014 // The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has approved an overall decrease of 5.2 percent in workers’ compensation insurance rates in Florida, the first decrease in four years. As expected, The National Council on...
Florida Supreme Court Weighs Workers’ Comp Attorney Fee Schedule
Dec 15 2014 // The Florida Supreme Court is considering whether to declare the state’s workers’ compensation attorney fee schedule unconstitutional. The court recently heard arguments in a case (Castellanos v. Next Door...
People – West
Dec 15 2014 // Data and analytics provider CoreLogic has named Lindene Patton global head of hazard product development for its insurance and spatial solutions business. Patton will lead development and research analytics for natural...
