Fla. Court to Expedite Allstate Appeal, Insurance Commissioner Encouraged

The Florida First District Court of Appeals has expedited Allstate Insurance Co.’s appeal of Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s Jan. 17 final immediate order suspending the companies’ licenses to write any new business in the state.

The court has directed that the record be filed within 15 days; the initial brief be filed within 10 days after that; the answer brief is to be filed 10 days later; and the reply brief five days thereafter.

The decision would be rendered at anytime after the reply brief is filed.

McCarty said he is disappointed that the District Court did not reinstate his suspension of Allstate, but is encouraged that the Court on its own motion has decided to expedite the appeal process.

“I remain committed to getting answers to questions about Allstate’s business practices and relationships with rating agencies, catastrophe modeling companies and industry trade groups,” McCarty said.

Allstate produced about 25,000 pages of documents within a week, according to McCarty. The documents were originally due on Jan. 15, based on an October 2007 subpoena.

“Although my office has not yet received all the documents requested from Allstate, I remain confident that everything in our subpoenas will be produced in a timely fashion and that we will continue to work together toward an amicable resolution of this matter,” McCarty added. “I remain ever committed to Florida consumers to get to the bottom of this issue and to ensure that Allstate is held accountable to the law.”

The Court’s order is available for viewing at http://www.1dca.org/allstate/order.pdf

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation

Topics Florida