State of Florida Legislative Update April 11th-15th 2011

In This Issue

Capitol Report: Legislative Update

Florida Surplus Lines Association

Legislative Update 2011

April 11-15

The House Property Insurance Package (Hb 803 by Rep. Wood) was reported favorably out of the Economic Affairs Committee this week. While the bill is technically available for the House Floor now, there is talk that it may be assigned one more committee. The Senate Property bill (Sb 408 by Sen. Richter) is available for a floor vote. The bills are still not aligned, and with this weeks amendments they are further apart. With the Senate off next week, and the House only meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, the bills could be ready for a vote on their respective chamber floors’ the first part of the week of April 28^th.

The bill was amended in the House to:

> Provide for a 4-year claims (increased from 3 yrs) deadline for new or reopened claims from a hurricane or windstorm, but expanded this deadline to all property insurance claims, not just catastrophic.
> Amended to include a 6-year statute of limitation on litigation (from the date of the loss);
> Language from another bill was added which provides for an expansion of the expedited reinsurance recoupment mechanism.
> Restores suspension of the use and file law upon the effective date of the main bill this summer and continuing this exemption through May 1, 2012.
>Establishes a 4-year (previously 3 years) cutoff for sinkhole claims from the date the policyholder knew or reasonably should have known of the damage. (*Note- The Senate bill continues to have 3 yrs for catastrophic claims & 2 yrs for sinkholes.)

The Citizens bill in the Senate, SB 1714 by Sen. Hays, was expected to be taken up by the Senate Budget Committee this week. However, the sponsor decided to ‘temporarily pass’ (ie postpone deliberations) on the bill Friday afternoon. It is anticipated that the bill will be addressed the first part of the week of April 28^th when the Senate returns from Easter break. Part of the decision may have been based on the results of a previously debated bill of his that was addressed by the same committee. The ‘Flex Rating/Rate Deregulation’ bill (Sb 1330) or as is it is also being referred to, the “Consumer Choice” bill was amended to establish a 10% ‘flex rating’ option (down from the original 15%) for residential insurers which will allow residential insurers to raise rates up to 10% on a statewide average- and up to 20% per policyholder without prior approval. In order to qualify however, insurers would have to have reinsurance to cover their 100-year PML (by 2015). The bill was heavily debated by the committee members, and eventually led Senator Hays to temporarily pass the bill. He anticipates it will be heard along with SB 1714 when the committee meets again. The House companion to SB 1714, HB 1243 by Representative Boyd, is on the House floor.

The Surplus Lines NRRA implementation bill in the Senate, Sb 1816 by Senator Fasano, cleared a major hurdle in the Senate when the bill was reported favorably after the committee Chairman, Senator Bogdanoff, withdrew her amendment to turn the bill into a study committee (ie effectively killing the legislation and the ability of Florida to comply with the July deadline). However, the House bill , Hb 1227 by Rep. Hager, was removed from its committee of reference agenda this past week and not addressed
Calendar: Senate off next week. House meets Wednesday and Thursday (April 19^th & 20^th). Session Ends May 6^th.

*Note- We will be providing a comprehensive update report next week for the Board on all the issues we are tracking, and their status, on behalf of FSLA.