Claims And Issues

Florida Court Lets Allstate Hold Docs and Gives State 10 Days: THE RULING.

    On January 18, 2008 Florida's First District Court of Appeal announced that it was setting aside a January 17 order of the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.  The OIR order temporarily suspended the authority of Allstate and its subsidiaries to issue and collect Premiums for new Automobile Insurance Policies in Florida.

    The OIR order was issued as a sanction for Allstate's failure to produce documents subpoenaed by the OIR for a Hearing on Allstate's Insurance conduct in charging higher Premiums, canceling some Homeowner's and other Property Insurance Coverages, and nonrenewing others.  (Rather, Allstate and its subsidiaries used the 60 days between the time the subpoenas were served and the date of the scheduled Hearing to prepare 51 pages of objections, which they apparently filed on the day of the Hearing.)

    Allstate and its subsidiaries immediately filed an appeal.  The appeal resulted in the Florida appellate court's order.

    The Florida Court's ruling was more limited than newspapers have reported.  Here is the entire text of it, as the ruling appears on the Online Docket:
Appellants' emergency motion for immediate relief from immediate final order suspending licenses filed January 17, 2008, is granted. The January 17, 2008, Immediate Final Order issued by the Office of Insurance Regulation is stayed pending further order of this court. Appellee shall show cause within 10 days of the date of this order why the stay should not remain in effect pending a final disposition on the merits of the appeal.

Obviously, much more to come.  And soon.

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Florida Court Lets Allstate Hold Docs and Gives State Ten Days.

    Allstate took its withholding documents position to Florida's First District Court of Appeal.

    Three days ago, on January 15, Allstate withheld documents from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.  Allstate was served with a subpoena 60 days ahead of time to bring documents to an OIR Hearing on that date.  Instead, Allstate brought 51 pages of objections and no documents.  That averages out to writing nearly one page of objections per day before the Hearing, to be delivered at the Hearing, and an average of zero pages of document production.

     One set of subpoenaed documents related to the reinsurance Allstate bought to protect itself from future Hurricane Damages Claims and other CatClaims.  The other set of documents that Allstate held on to, concerns its CatClaims Model that it used to justify things like past Premium increases and Policy cancellations.  It apparently uses the same or a similar unauthorized CatClaims Model that other Homeowner's and Property Insurance Companies are using.

    Two days ago or the day after the document non-production, on January 16, Allstate's many Auto Insurance subsidiaries were suspended from writing future business in Florida by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.  Current Allstate Auto Insurance Policyholders would reportedly be unaffected.

    On January 18, the Florida appellate court lifted the OIR's ban on new Auto Premium money for Allstate in Florida.  The Florida appellate court gave Florida 10 days to prove why there should be a ban.  Julie Patel, "Court Lifts State Ban on Allstate" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com, Friday, January 18, 2008).  Changed on January 19, 2008 to this revised article by Julie Patel at Sun Florida-Sentinel.com, Saturday, January 19, 2008.

    No ruling was apparently made to address why documents do not see the light of day concerning Insurance issues that are so important to Florida.  Perhaps that too will be addressed some day.

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Auto and Homeowner's Insurance One-Site Comparison Premiums Available Online.

     Comparison shopping can be a good thing.  You can check out Comparative Quotes for Auto and Home Insurance Coverages available in Delaware at the Delaware Insurance Commissioner's online site, here.  Why, you say, should you be interested in these Coverages that are available in Delaware if you do not live in Delaware?  Well, for one thing, it may provide Comparisons to your own locality!  You have nothing to lose by becoming more informed, on this issue at least.  Check it out if you can.

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Attorney's Fees and Florida PIP ... And Wait Till Next Year!

     Personal Injury Protection ("PIP") benefits are generally available under Automobile Insurance policies issued in the United States.  In Florida, PIP benefits were scheduled to permanently expire when the statute requiring them "sunset," or expired,  on September 30, 2007.    The Florida Legislature  passed a reauthorization of the Florida PIP statute on Friday, October 5, 2007--effective, however, on January 1, 2008.  It is difficult to find a link to this new statute which was passed three days ago at the time of this post.   Link  here  to the "enrolled" bill which appears to be a compromise Florida Senate and House Bill 13.

     New subsection (15) of Section 627.736 is of special interest.  It is found on page 85 of 89 pages on the attached link.  Subsection (15) regulates awards of attorney's fees.  In some cases, there will be no attorney's fees awarded at all under this new statute.

     Here is how it is written.  How it will work will depend on the Florida Courts.  Whenever a claimant files a lawsuit against the Insurance Company under Section 627.736 to recover PIP benefits allegedly due and owing under the Insurance Policy, the new provision purports to bar attorney's fees awards when there is a claim that "should have been brought in a prior civil action" but was not brought before, AND "the court determines" that to be the case. 

     The same new Subsection 627.736(15) also provides that "all claims related to the same health care provider for the same injured person shall be brought in one action," ordinarily.  In other words, at least one of the times when the Legislature was of the view that a PIP claim "should have been brought in a prior civil action," is whenever there was a previous claim for PIP benefits "related to the same health care provider for the same injured person".   Parenthetically, Section 627.736 did not convey a statutory definition of "health care provider" before or after the new provision was enacted.

     Whether there are any other times that a "court determines" that a lawsuit "is filed for a claim that should have been brought in a prior civil action," is of course also for the Courts to determine.

     In the interim, the Florida PIP statute was recently reenacted to take effect next year.

                                                      

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