Insurance Journal’s Top 10 Most Read Stories of 2020: Southeast Region

Here’s a look back at Insurance Journal’s most read stories of 2020 for the Southeast region, based on readership metrics:

Florida attorney Scot Strems was suspended by the Florida Supreme Court after an emergency petition from The Florida Bar over allegations that he and his firm were causing great public harm by filing thousands of frivolous assignment of benefit lawsuits against insurance companies in the state.

Financial analysis firm Demotech, which rates more than 40 Florida-based domestic insurance carriers, alerted the head of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. in January that as many as 18 companies could see their financial stability ratings downgraded due to hazardous financial conditions.

As the coronavirus pandemic began to sweep the nation in March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to the impending public health crisis by declaring a state of emergency so Florida could better marshal resources and get outside help to combat the virus.

Florida’s property insurance market is facing many challenges from unchecked claims litigation, catastrophe losses and rising reinsurance rates, and the industry is responding by significantly raising rates and cutting capacity.

Several years of mounting financial losses and the increased cost of reinsurance for the 2020 storm season left this Florida insurer with no choice but to shed thousands of policies in May, just a few weeks before the start of hurricane season.

With people cutting back on their driving because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many insurers responded by providing discounts to auto insurance policyholders, or in the case of this company, a 20% dividend that totaled approximately $22 million in savings for insureds.

After warning of the potential for insurer ratings downgrades at the beginning of the year, Demotech affirmed all but nine of the 46 Florida-based companies it rates by the end of March, and said it was continuing to review financial information and have business plan discussions with the insurers it hadn’t yet affirmed.

A North Carolina worker who sued for being attacked and fired over complaints about his supervisor’s intoxication on the job was awarded the sum in a case that was ultimately heard by a federal appeals court.

The court-appointed referee tasked with overseeing the Scot Strems case recommended to the Florida Supreme Court in October that he be suspended for 24 months followed by one-year probation after finding The Florida Bar had proven Strems’ violated 14 Bar rules.

Florida-based MGA Centauri Specialty Insurance Holdings (CSIH) and Centauri Specialty Managers (CSM), now owned by Applied Underwriters, sued Wellington Insurance of Texas in May for breach of non-solicitation provisions and a confidentiality agreement put in place when they began to pursue a business relationship in 2018.