EDITORIAL: Will bill help hurricane victims get paid?

OUR POSITION: We hope and trust legislation to tighten oversight of insurance companies will actually make a difference as to the reliability with which homeowners are reimbursed for losses.

Sen. Ben Albritton, who represents DeSoto and part of Charlotte County, reminded us in an email to The Daily Sun that "insurance regulation is more of a marathon than a sprint since it includes not just the insurance company and the policy holder, but it also includes the re-insurance companies that operate at a global perspective."

He's so right.

Florida lawmakers took their first stab at insurance reform in a 2022 special session.

It wasn't a game-changer for most homeowners who were hoping for legislation that would cut their sky-high rates or at least assure that response to their claims was quicker and more likely to cover losses. Although lawmakers pleaded patience, saying the new laws would take time to have an impact on rates, the reviews were poor.

The feedback was that lawmakers did a lot to help insurance companies, and not much to help the consumer.

When the 2023 session began, legislators took another swing at the problem. Once again, most of the bills that were passed did more to lure insurers to Florida's market and protect them against suits than they helped homeowners.

Before the 2023 session ended, however, the heavily-criticized lawmakers did pass a bill or two they believe will bring accountability to the insurance providers and help long-suffering claimants who are having difficulty getting a fair assessment and payment for 2022 claims filed after Hurricanes Ian and Nicole.

New regulations should boost oversight of insurance companies and hike fines that can be charged for insurance companies that don't play by the rules. It also required that rates charged by insurers reflect changes made in recent laws that were supposed to help lower rates.

The new laws should prevent insurers from changing claims estimates or "low-balling" clients — a problem that many homeowners complained about in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

Hopefully, if the laws are followed precisely, the impact will alleviate some of the one-sidedness of earlier laws that hampered the ability of claimants to collect money by forcing them to pay attorney fees for the insurance company if they sued to get money and lost. That was a major ingredient in the legislation passed in 2022 that insurance companies said would stop frivolous lawsuits that were jacking up their overhead.

One aspect of the new laws would not allow insurance companies to toy with estimates turned in by adjusters. This was a huge issue after Ian because insurance companies were so overwhelmed that they called in freelance adjusters from all over the country. But there were proven cases where the insurance company ignored or altered the estimates turned in by those adjusters, leaving the homeowners without the money to make needed repairs and resorting to calling in public adjusters and/or lawyers to settle their claims.

Insurance companies are also required to do a better job of tracking claims and improving their performance of reporting to state regulators.

There are a number of other aspects of the new legislation that make sense.

For example, insurers would be barred from cancelling a residential property policy for 90 days after a property has been repaired from hurricane or wind damage. If a roof deductible is applied to a loss under a residential policy, no other deductible can be applied.

Fines would be increased if an insurer does not respond to a client's complaints in a timely manner.

There are other changes that, when all is considered, should make it easier to get a fair settlement with your insurance company. Those changes may not make an immediate impact.

But, it's good to know that victims of future hurricanes will have another level of protection and a better chance of getting a fair settlement that will cover all their losses.