Latest Florida Headlines

All the headlines from our Florida Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Gremesco Sells Florida Office Only to New Jersey Wholesaler PRS

Sep 27 2010 // New Jersey-based Professional Risk Solutions (PRS), a wholesale insurance broker, has purchased the assets of Gremesco of Florida, LLC, one of seven members of the Gremesco group of companies. All of the other offices of...

Florida Approves 10.3% Rate Hike for Citizens Property

Sep 23 2010 // Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty has approved a statewide average homeowners insurance rate increase of 10.3 percent for policies written by the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Citizens had filed...

Florida Workshop to Review New Mitigation Credit Inspection Form

Sep 21 2010 // Florida insurance officials are holding a public workshop to review the form used by inspectors to document eligibility for wind mitigation discounts for personal residential property tomorrow, Wed., Sept. 22, 2010. During...

Business Moves

Sep 20 2010 // Unisource Program, U.S. Risk Specialty lines underwriting manager and wholesale broker U.S. Risk Insurance Group Inc. has taken over Florida-located Unisource Program Administrators, a wholesaler of workers’...

Florida Insurer Blames Exit on Fraud

Sep 20 2010 // With a letter sent out a few weeks ago, Explorer Insurance announced that it will no longer write private automobile policies in Florida because there is too much fraud. “The company is taking this action in light of...

Florida’s Citizens Says Sinkhole Claims Require Rate Hike

Sep 20 2010 // At a hearing before the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. officials blamed sinkholes as the major reason the public insurer needs a rate increase. Testifying at the public hearing in...

America’s Best Independent Agencies to Work For

Sep 20 2010 // Salaries and Benefits Lead but Quality of People and Relationships Win Votes, Too The results are in from the 2010 Best Independent Insurance Agency to Work For survey by Insurance Journal. The owners of the Best Agencies...

Florida Workers’ Comp Law Shields Disney World, SeaWorld from Suits

Sep 17 2010 // They are two of Central Florida’s biggest and best-known employers — and both face the prospect of potentially ugly lawsuits stemming from a worker’s death on the job. And yet Walt Disney World, which is...

U.S. Judge Sets December Date for Health Care Suit Hearing

Sep 15 2010 // A Florida judge said Tuesday he would hear arguments Dec. 16 on a lawsuit by 20 U.S. states seeking to block President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the U.S. health care system. U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, who is...

Florida Arrests Alleged Citizens Property Scammer

Sep 13 2010 // Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink today announced the arrest of Aylin Hernandez, 23, of Miami, for fraudulently diverting mail and stealing payments intended for Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Hernandez...

Blue Cross Leads Health Insurers in Florida

Sep 10 2010 // Florida released a report yesterday listing the market share and earnings of accident and health insurers, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc. ranked first in premiums earned, with $3.9 billion in direct...

Departure of Insurer from Florida Points Up Fraud Problem

Sep 9 2010 // With a letter sent out a few weeks ago, Explorer Insurance announced that it will no longer write private automobile policies in Florida because there is too much fraud. “The company is taking this action in light of...

Florida Arrests Two Insurance Executives for Lying on Statements

Sep 9 2010 // Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink announced today the culmination of an extensive insurance fraud investigation with the arrest of Luis M. Espinosa, 60, and Rene M. Cambert, 55, on eight first degree felony counts...

Florida’s Citizens Says Sinkhole Claims Forcing Proposed Rate Hike

Sep 8 2010 // At a hearing yesterday before the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. officials blamed sinkholes as the major reason the public insurer needs a rate increase. Testifying at the public...

Florida Plans Hearing on Citizens’ Rate Increases

Sep 7 2010 // Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation will hold a hearing on proposed rate increases for several lines of insurance from Citizens Property Insurance Corp. at 1 p.m. on Sept. 7, 2010, in Tallahassee. The lines of...

How Katrina Changed Markets

Sep 6 2010 // Industry Came Through Five years after Hurricane Katrina lashed the coast and sunk New Orleans, it is true that the area has largely recovered, but it is not the same Gulf Coast it once was. The same is true for the...

Hurricane Katrina Changed the Market in Gulf States

Sep 6 2010 // Writing about the landfall of Hurricane Katrina five years ago, essayist Ellis Anderson of Mississippi likened the communities along the gulf to a string of pearls. “Then, in August 2005, in the course of a single...

Florida Workers’ Comp Reform Slowed Cost Growth

Sep 3 2010 // Reform of Florida’s workers’ compensation fee schedule in 2003 achieved its intended results, significantly increasing the prices paid for physician services and reducing the average payment per service for...

Hub Acquires Nevada, Florida Agencies

Sep 2 2010 // Hub International Limited (Hub) has acquired two insurance agencies in the Nevada and Florida. Hub acquired the assets of McFadden Insurance Agency Inc. (McFadden), a Las Vegas–based firm. Terms of the acquisition...

Storm Advice Offered for Florida Cell Phone Users

Aug 30 2010 // With Hurricane Danielle and Tropical Storm Earl roaming the Atlantic Ocean and signaling the start of the most active period of the 2010 storm season, Verizon Wireless urged Florida residents to prepare their emergency...