Despite last year's hurricane damage, insurance companies sticking with Florida clients

Despite last year's hurricane damage, insurance companies sticking with Florida clients Publication Date 07/09/2017 Source: St. Augustine Record, The (FL) About a decade ago, Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne caused an estimated $45 billion in property damage in Florida and enough uneasiness in the insurance industry that some of the nation's biggest companies pulled out of the market entirely. Following Hurricane Matthew's punishing trip up the Florida coast last fall, the reaction from insurance companies is much different in 2017. Despite estimated property damage of $1.182 billion, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, getting insurance for most customers in the state is not that difficult, industry leaders say. According to Lynne McChristian of the Insurance Information Institute, Matthew's impact was not significant enough to rattle most companies. "Hurricane Matthew was not a major disruption to the insurance market," McChristian said in an email to The Record. "Florida insurers were in a solid financial position to handle the losses from that storm. "Due to the lucky break of zero major hurricanes for more than a decade, insurers had the claims-paying resources needed to handle Matthew." Doug Wiles, president of Herbie Wiles Insurance in St. Augustine, said there's one major difference between the market today compared to 10 or so years ago. He said most homeowners policies are sold by Florida-based insurance companies. Those companies were established to serve the state and aren't going to pull out because this is their market. Wiles said even with the damage caused by Matthew and Hermine last year, there is no panic or instability in the insurance market. "The issues that affected us after 2004, '05, '06 hurricanes are different from what we face today," Wiles said. "Hurricane Matthew was a non-event from an insurance company perspective. "We're not seeing some dramatic things like we saw in 2005, '06, '07, and that's good news for the consumer." That doesn't mean there aren't difficulties here. Florida residents still face the highest homeowners insurance rates in the country. According to the website ValuePenguin, the average policy in Florida is $1,471. The national average is $964. Laura Smith, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com, said that's the result of several factors. First, the state is obviously in the path of severe weather quite often. In addition to hurricanes, Florida's frequent thunderstorms bring lightning strikes, flooding, wind damage and more. "Wind and rain damage are some of the (top) claims in terms of frequency and in terms in value as well," Smith said. "They're very expensive claims. No matter where you live in the state, you're susceptible to lots of claims." And although there are a lot of Florida-based insurance companies out there, the fact that some of the national players have pulled out hurts competition. "When you have fewer and fewer companies doing business in the state, there's not so much competition," Smith said. "The fewer number of insurers, just the less competition, the higher rates they can get away with charging. "It's been really tough for Florida residents to get affordable coverage. The reality is the only thing consumers can do to protect themselves is shop. If you are not shopping, not looking at what's happening with rates, you could easily be overpaying for your coverage." But at least insurance is available on the open market. One positive sign insurance professionals have pointed to is the decline in the number of policies sold by Citizens Property Insurance, which is the state-backed agency often referred to as the insurer of last resort. A 2014 USA Today article said the number of policies sold by Citizens dropped from 1.4 million in 2012 to 933,807 two years later. By the end of 2016, that number dropped to fewer than 500,000 policies. That means more customers are buying policies in the open market, hopefully spurring competition. Higher numbers of Citizens policies would suggest that the private market is shrinking, offering fewer choices for buyers. "I haven't really seen that mass exodus from Florida like we did a decade ago," Smith said. "I think it's kind of the norm now. This is why the prices in Florida are so high. The companies that are doing business there are factoring in the potential for these storms in the future." Copyright, 2017, The St. Augustine Record, All Rights Reserved. About Michael Wagner Highly accomplished, visionary executive with proven ability to impact financial, social, and political goals through commitment to global issues, innovation, and diversity. Results-oriented, decisive leader offering 15+ years of success in sales, operations, and marketing. Deliver excellence in execution and developing people, utilizing international / multicultural experience to provide unique perspective and creative solutions, achieving high performance within diverse organizational cultures. Demonstrate rapid advancement based on high performance, with the ability to quickly transfer skills across industries. Self-starter with strong entrepreneurial spirit, high integrity, and solid work ethic; creative, highly analytical, and able to successfully manage multiple concurrent projects with keen attention to detail, excellent organization, and outstanding persuasive skills. Able to skillfully inspire, motivate, and lead teams for consistently winning outcomes. Specialties: Commercial Property Insurance, Multi-State Schedules of Insurance, Revenue Growth, Executive Management, C-Suite Sales, AC Nielsen data analysis, IRI data analysis, Sales Strategy Formulation, Execution, Process Standardization, Consumer Goods, Profit/Loss Management, Sales Skills Training, Sales Performance Management, Business Development,Leadership Development,Team Building,Talent/Organizational Development, Recruiting,Marketing Campaigns,Google Ad Words, Social Media Technology,Google Places, Google+ Local, WordPress, Video Marketing,& Webinars

Michael Wagner Executive | Chief Marketing Officer | Expert Brand Builder | Global Business Driver | 14,000 + Connections

Michael Wagner Executive | Chief Marketing Officer | Expert Brand Builder | Global Business Driver | 14,000 + Connections

Highly accomplished, visionary executive with proven ability to impact financial, social, and political goals through commitment to global issues, innovation, and diversity. Results-oriented, decisive leader offering 15+ years of success in sales, operations, and marketing. Deliver excellence in execution and developing people, utilizing international / multicultural experience to provide unique perspective and creative solutions, achieving high performance within diverse organizational cultures. Demonstrate rapid advancement based on high performance, with the ability to quickly transfer skills across industries. Self-starter with strong entrepreneurial spirit, high integrity, and solid work ethic; creative, highly analytical, and able to successfully manage multiple concurrent projects with keen attention to detail, excellent organization, and outstanding persuasive skills. Able to skillfully inspire, motivate, and lead teams for consistently winning outcomes.

Specialties: Commercial Property Insurance, Multi-State Schedules of Insurance, Revenue Growth, Executive Management, C-Suite Sales, AC Nielsen data analysis, IRI data analysis, Sales Strategy Formulation, Execution, Process Standardization, Consumer Goods, Profit/Loss Management, Sales Skills Training, Sales Performance Management, Business Development,Leadership Development,Team Building,Talent/Organizational Development, Recruiting,Marketing Campaigns,Google Ad Words, Social Media Technology,Google Places, Google+ Local, WordPress, Video Marketing,& Webinars

Michael Wagner Executive | Chief Marketing Officer | Expert Brand Builder | Global Business Driver | 14,000 + Connections

Michael Wagner Executive | Chief Marketing Officer | Expert Brand Builder | Global Business Driver | 14,000 + Connections

Florida: How safe is your home insurer in 2017?

Written by Charlse Elmore  Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

3:53 p.m Friday, May 12, 2017

A potentially darker 2017 hurricane outlook hangs on a “knife’s edge” of pending weather factors, one forecaster says, but South Florida home owners are already doused with rising insurance rates and a wave of mergers and capital infusions to prop up insurers threatened with lower financial ratings.
One refuge: The updated and exclusive Palm Beach Post Property Insurance Guide, available today online with free access to subscribers. It lists multiple financial ratings for more than 100 companies, along with information about how to contact each company, its number of customers and complaint data obtained and analyzed by the Post.
As the 2017 hurricane season approaches June 1, premiums are rising 10 percent or more in some cases.
“When is enough enough?” said West Palm Beach homeowner Jim Finnegan, who gets windstorm coverage from state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
In the state with the nation’s highest home insurance costs, it’s an especially good year to take matters into your own hands and find out what the options really are.
Sitting back and waiting for mailed offers may not help much at this point.
A year after Florida’s 11-year hurricane dodge ended, offers from private insurers to take Citizens customers are slowing to a trickle. After about 1 million customers left Citizens in recent years, just over 12,000 have departed so far in 2017.
Only one company, Weston Insurance Co., plans to make offers — up to 12,000 — in June and July.
Let’s face it: It’s no piece of cake to shop for home insurance in Florida. It’s not like booking a hotel room or airline ticket or even buying car insurance, where an array of online marketplaces make it easier for consumers to harness the power of price competition.
Most of the companies writing new business are small, homegrown players. Plenty of insurers are not writing new policies at all.
Yet a competitive market still exists in many if not all parts of South Florida if you are willing to dig, said Clint Strauch, president of Boca Raton-based Florida Peninsula Insurance Co. and sister firm Edison Insurance Co.
His companies are trying to make it simpler for consumers to do their own research and get a realistic price quote online.
“Our main goal was to create a convenient, fast and easy way for Florida consumers to shop and compare coverage,” Strauch said. People can certainly reach out to an agent if they have questions, he said.
Ratings firm Demotech Inc. threatened lower financial grades on several Florida insurers heading into storm season, prompting a flurry of mergers, changes in ownership and capital infusions.
Avatar Partners LP, the parent company of Tampa, Fla.-based Avatar Property & Casualty Insurance Co., announced in March it agreed to acquire Tallahassee, Fla.-based Elements Property Insurance Holdings LLC and subsidiaries including Elements Property Insurance Co. Also announcing new ownership was Tampa-based Prepared Insurance Co.
Insurers under pressure added about $200 million in loss reserves and $155 million in capital contributions, Demotech said. A host of companies retained A grades but Demotech warned it remains “likely that insurers may face downgrades in the future.”
Meanwhile, the return of hurricanes to Florida isn’t even the only reason insurers say they need to raise rates. There’s a lot of fuss about what state legislators didn’t do in a session that ended May 8.
Lawmakers could not reach agreement to pass new laws restricting costs in non-hurricane claims that insurers say are inflated by contractors and attorneys.
These costs are often associated with “assignment of benefits,” or AOB. That’s when a contractor offers to clean up water from a plumbing leak, for example, and handle the claim with the insurance company if the customer signs a form.
Attorneys and contractors pushed back, saying insurers can fix the problem by paying claims quickly or winning bogus cases in court.
Insurance executives have sometimes cast the problem a little differently when talking to stock analysts. Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty Insurance Co. CEO Paresh Patel said in February AOB trends have featured “extremely elevated” levels of costs but also that they have “steadied out.”
“It’s too early to tell yet, but the actions we have taken make us very optimistic that at a minimum, the AOB problem for us has stabilized and at a maximum, it may actually go into decline because of some of the underwriting actions that we have taken,” Patel said.
Citizens officials have defined the AOB problem zone as Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, though Patel limited it to Broward and Miami-Dade in his company’s experience.
In February, the Post reported the state’s largest insurer and the biggest in Palm Beach and Broward counties said its average cost for AOB claims has been falling for two years.
“We saw a little bit uptick in frequency, nothing major,” Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. CEO Sean Downes told analysts on a fourth-quarter earnings call. “But the severity is down.”
Universal tried to impose a blanket 8.1 percent rate increase for 2017 in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties but regulators questioned its vague justification and the company withdrew it. Universal had about 577,000 customers statewide at the start of the year, the most in Florida, state records show.
Citizens, the state’s second-largest insurer with about 450,000 customers, expects to add policies in 2017 even as it raises premiums near its state-imposed rate cap of 10 percent a year.
One of the state’s top six insurers, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co., emphasized with analysts it has moved away from writing new business in the tri-county region including Palm Beach.
So for consumers, it’s no time to sit and watch the mailbox. Take control and check things out with resources including the Post guide.
Take charge

Floridians pay the nation’s highest home insurance costs, so it pays to be your own advocate. Check out multiple financial ratings and complaint information on more than 100 companies analyzed by the newspaper in The Palm Beach Post’s Property Insurance Guide:

myPalmBeachPost.com/insuranceexplorer

Talk to agents. Go online. The state’s Office of Insurance Regulation offers basic information about price examples and availability by county:

http://www.floir.com/choices

Top insurers in Palm Beach County

Company/customers in county at start of 2017

1. Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. 71,777

2. Citizens Property Insurance Corp. 42,759

3. Federated National Insurance Co. 34,934

4. Homeowners Choice P&C Ins. Co. 20,642

5. Heritage P&C Insurance Co. 19,869

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation


Michael Wagner

Executive | Chief Marketing Officer | Expert Brand Builder | Global Business Driver | 13,000 + Connections

Highly accomplished, visionary executive with proven ability to impact financial, social, and political goals through commitment to global issues, innovation, and diversity. Results-oriented, decisive leader offering 15+ years of success in sales, operations, and marketing. Deliver excellence in execution and developing people, utilizing international / multicultural experience to provide unique perspective and creative solutions, achieving high performance within diverse organizational cultures. Demonstrate rapid advancement based on high performance, with the ability to quickly transfer skills across industries. Self-starter with strong entrepreneurial spirit, high integrity, and solid work ethic; creative, highly analytical, and able to successfully manage multiple concurrent projects with keen attention to detail, excellent organization, and outstanding persuasive skills. Able to skillfully inspire, motivate, and lead teams for consistently winning outcomes.

Specialties: Commercial Property Insurance, Multi-State Schedules of Insurance, Revenue Growth, Executive Management, C-Suite Sales, AC Nielsen data analysis, IRI data analysis, Sales Strategy Formulation, Execution, Process Standardization, Consumer Goods, Profit/Loss Management, Sales Skills Training, Sales Performance Management, Business Development,Leadership Development,Team Building,Talent/Organizational Development, Recruiting,Marketing Campaigns,Google Ad Words, Social Media Technology,Google Places, Google+ Local, WordPress, Video Marketing,& Webinars