The silver lining to last year’s hurricanes proved that without adequate compensation for agents, there will be trouble when claims need to be settled, freshman Rep. Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) told Professional Insurance Agents of Florida members attending Legislative Day in Tallahassee, Fla.
Cannon said the hurricanes taught a valuable lesson, that independent agents do a much better job of representing customers in times of disaster and provide more valuable assistance than companies that offer bargain rates and offer customers slow service when they need help.
Cannon described his experience with hurricanes Charlie and Frances. Charlie hit Cannon’s home near Orlando Aug. 13 and Frances later finished it off. He said his insurance company and contractor still have not agreed to repair the damage.
Cannon said he plans to closely watch insurance-related legislation both on a personal basis and for quality of life during the March meetings of the Florida Legislature.
Citizens in trouble
All four legislators addressing PIA acknowledged that Citizens was in trouble, but none could suggest how to solve the problem. When Cannon encouraged questions from the audience he opened up a can of worms about Citizens, the state’s insurer of last resort.
Other audience members suggested an alternative might be to turn over more Citizens business to independent agents. They said Citizens has never served the consumer due to the fact that it and its predecessor had been established as temporary measures to provide insurance until the consumer could find an alternative.
PIA of Florida members complained about Citizens service, saying that while independent agents provided excellent service during the hurricanes, at times even ignoring the needs of their own families, Citizens has been very slow to react.
A South Florida agent complained that while Citizens is the only available insurer in many areas, even in the best of times 80 percent of callers were put on hold for a long time.
It cost him three times as much to service a Citizens policy than it did to work with other companies. With most of his other carriers he said procedures that take hours with Citizens could be done online in a few minutes.
He said Citizens still had a ridiculous system with bureaucracy and paperwork with no intent to service or help the consumer. He described a simple procedure, such as changing from one mortgage company to another, which takes a few minutes with most carriers, to take days and a mountain of paperwork with Citizens.
Cannon asked if the insurance industry had a representative on the Citizens board, and when the answer was no, suggested that PIA should make an effort to get a representative on its board.
Topics Florida Catastrophe Natural Disasters Agencies Hurricane
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