Bulk of open Hurricane Michael insurance claims in Bay County

News Herald (Panama City, FL)

Aug. 3--PANAMA CITY -- It's clear Bay County easily has most of the nearly 14 percent in still unresolved Hurricane Michael insurance claims.

What's unclear is exactly why those claims are still open.

Of the 20,484 total open claims as of last week, 15,139 or about 74 percent are in the county. While some area claims attorneys and public adjusters agree the insurance process has taken longer than expected, they disagree as to why. Some say the insurers have purposely dragged their feet so they don't have to pay out as much as they owe. Others say the insurance companies underestimated the disaster and don't have enough employees with proper training to handle the claims workload.

Almost 10 months have passed since the Category 5 hurricane devastated the county and other parts of the Panhandle, yet claims still linger and estimates of insured losses continue to rise.

According to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, currently estimated insured losses are more than $6.9 billion, up about $250 million from the end of June.

In all, 148,347 claims have been filed from the Oct. 10 hurricane. The majority of those claims, 88,830, have been closed in Bay County.

But it's the other the 20,484 still unresolved claims that's recently garnered statewide attention.

Cliff Higby, an attorney with Bryant, Higby and Barr in Panama City, said that from his experience helping clients since the hurricane, some insurers are slowing the claims process on purpose.

"The simple matter is that there are insurance companies that are dragging their heels and using any tools they have to avoid paying these claims," Hibgy said. "I hope the state is paying attention because if this situation happens in South Florida or another more populated area, there will be severe backlash."

State officials have begun taking notice.

Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier recently expressed concerns to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Cabinet about the number of unresolved claims.

"From a regulatory standpoint, we've made it clear to the industry that we will look very unfavorably on any insurance company who appears to be dragging their feet, so to speak, in their efforts to close these claims," Altmaier said. "I know the industry is aware their reputation is at stake here."

Higby said the unresolved claims issue might even be worse than what's currently been reported.

"That is an artificially low number," Hibgy said of the reported unresolved claims. "There are more claims out there even though they've been identified as closed ... the insurers close them for administrative purposes even though there are disputes of outstanding claims."

Bo Williamson, owner of Noble Public Adjusting Group in Panama City Beach, also said he believed the claims numbers reported to the state were inaccurate.

"They will take a claim, make a payment, then close it out in their system and send that report to the state, but in fact that claim is still under dispute," Williamson said of insurers. "Insurance companies are doing this, in my opinion, to look good for the state."

Williamson said insurance companies are purposely slowing the process in the hopes people will give up on their claims.

"We still have people coming to us every day -- they've been waiting on their claims and are just exhausted and they are just ready to take whatever," Williamson said.

However Mohammad Sherif, attorney with Mubarak and Sherif in Panama City, said insurance companies aren't purposefully slowing the process, but instead weren't prepared and have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm.

"I think it's just a lot of stress on the insurance companies," Sherif said. "I've been seeing a lot of claims open longer than they should be ... but I would describe it as a severity issue."

Sherif noted that he's familiar with the limits of the insurance industry because he worked as general counsel for an insurer before the hurricane struck. He created his law firm soon after the storm because he knew there would be a need.

"We just knew people would need help ... the process isn't as seamless as it should be," Sherif said.

Sherif said the problems are that the insurance industry lacks the personnel and sufficient training to handle such a large number of large claims like what's been generated since Michael.

"I think there needs to be more competent and better training and more competent adjusters in the field," he said. "There needs to be more people trained to handle these kinds of losses."

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