Top Southeast Region Insurance Journal Stories of 2024
From insurance lawsuits resulting from a murderous South Carolina lawyer and his family, to relentless Florida storm claims, a tight mobile home market and body-shop fraud charges, news stories gave Insurance Journal readers in the Southeast plenty to digest in 2024. Here are the top 10 best-read articles for the year.
With American Mobile Cancellations, Florida Mobile Home Market Has ‘Fallen Apart’
Reinsurance in Florida’s long-stressed property insurance market was supposed to have stabilized this year – with moderate rate increases and more availability.
But those calmer waters apparently have not reached the mobile home market, and Florida insurance agents are now reporting that higher reinsurance costs have forced at least one carrier to cancel coverage for mobile homes and manufactured homes. Agents said they can find very little available coverage, especially for mobile homes that are more than two years old.
“One of our niches has been manufactured homes and mobile homes. But now the market has absolutely fallen apart in Florida,” said John Gardner, of Fort Myers, principal at Lee County Insurance agency, one of the larger agencies in the area.
Coverage Needed: Hundreds of Thousands in SE Now in Flood Zones With New Maps
Many more properties, including hundreds of thousands of homes across Florida and other parts of the Southeast, were required to purchase flood insurance after July 31, due to revisions in federal flood maps.
For some of the most exposed and populous parts of the region, in south Florida, the changes mean about 138,800 more structures in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties are now considered to be in the special flood hazard area, a significant increase from previous flood maps, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For properties with mortgages, most owners will be required to buy flood coverage, bringing opportunity to insurance agents and private flood insurers, but more costs for insureds.
Florida’s Heritage Stock Price Drops After ’60 Minutes’ Report on Adjusters
Just as Florida property insurers faced another round of storm claims, CBS News in October raised questions about alleged insurer fraud stemming from claims incurred in the last major storm – Hurricane Ian, which hit much of southwest Florida two years ago.
CBS’ “60 Minutes,” known as the longest-running investigative news show, aired a segment Sunday night that reiterated claims made by several independent claims adjusters. The adjusters have maintained that multiple insurance companies altered their repair estimates on homes damaged in Ian, in a way that lowballs and misleads insureds.
Heritage officials said the 60 Minutes report is in error and the carrier had revised many estimates upward, paying insureds more than the initial adjusters had called for.
The TV report appears to have had an impact, though. It received more than 610,000 views on YouTube and more than 3,200 comments. The share price of Heritage stock dropped sharply, as soon as exchanges opened the Monday morning following the report. The price had been holding steady at around $16 a share in recent weeks but dropped to about $12 that day.
Florida CFO Bars Insurers From Altering Adjusters’ Reports Without Explanation
A few days after the 60 Minutes report, and almost two years after a group of independent claims adjusters alleged that insurers had deceptively altered their damage estimates and low-balled policyholders, Florida’s chief financial officer issued an emergency rule barring similar actions in Hurricane Milton claims.
“Any move in a positive direction is a good thing,” said Mark Vinson, one of the whistleblowing independent adjusters who made the charges at a Florida legislative hearing in late 2022.
The rule, posted Oct. 9, just as Hurricane Milton’s eyewall made landfall near Tampa, prohibits desk adjusters from modifying field adjusters’ initial damage estimates – unless the revised report indicates all changes, provides a detailed explanation of why the changes were made, and includes the identity of the desk adjuster responsible for the revisions.
Another of the Florida adjusters who spoke up about the alleged insurer practices said the new rule is a partial victory but more needs to be done.
Fannie Mae Guidelines Raise Concerns, Could Bar ACV Coverage for Homes
A revised Selling Guide from Fannie Mae, a government-backed mortgage purchaser, created a stir in May when it appeared to require home insurance policies to provide replacement value for most homes with mortgages. That cut against the grain of a move by many insurers to provide actual cash value for more homes and condominiums, as storm and other losses have mounted.
A few days later, though, after some outcry by insurance groups, the mortgage giants decided to hold off on the plan. Fannie and Freddie officials suggested that the industry concerns were overwrought, anyway: The replacement-coverage guidelines have been in place for years, and the recent bulletins simply clarified things. Some insurance advocates, though, were worried. They have said that the mortgage-buying corporations have rarely enforced anti-ACV rules through the years, and the updates seemed to signal a new crackdown.
Farmers’ Adjusters Cry Foul Over Workloads, Claims Handling in Letter to Regulators
Farmers Insurance officials said in June that they have spoken with employees after receiving an anonymous letter, apparently from a group of in-house adjusters, accusing the insurer of understaffing and overworking claims professionals.
“Farmers Insurance has always been a leader in customer focus, professionalism, and integrity; however, the current work environment and conditions deeply contradict these core values,” reads the anonymous letter, sent May 14 to Farmers and to insurance regulators in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
The letter said Farmers, a subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group and headquartered in Los Angeles, was guilty of improperly managing claims due to the severe staffing problems.
“Although we as a group request to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, we feel we have an obligatory duty to report on the current working conditions and overall failure of compliant claims management taking place daily,” the letter reads. “Inadequate staffing and resources have resulted in unachievable expectations imposed on us, and in the best interest of our customers and policyholders as well as ourselves who are responsible for servicing their claims, it’s critical these issues are addressed.”
The Murdaugh Drama in SC Continues: Store That Sold Beer Now Suing its Insurers
The saga of the Murdaugh family in South Carolina continued in 2024, with a convenience store company suing its liability insurers for failing to defend it against a second lawsuit stemming from the sale of beer to an underage Paul Murdaugh on a fateful night in 2019.
The lawsuit in federal court in Georgia could add to the simmering debate over the high cost of liability insurance for establishments that sell alcohol in South Carolina, a cost that has driven a number of restaurants, bars and venues to close in the last two years.
In the complaint, Parker’s Corp. and its principal officers charge that Amerisure Insurance Co. and Utica Mutual Insurance breached the insurance contract by denying coverage for a lawsuit filed by the estate of a young woman killed in a boat crash – a boat reportedly driven by the underage and intoxicated son of Alex Murdaugh.
The elder Murdaugh is a former well-known South Carolina attorney who was convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife and his son, Paul, in 2021.
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Florida Agents Will Soon Need Three Appointments Before Selling Citizens
Starting July 1, Florida insurance agents were required to have at least three appointments with authorized carriers before they can sell policies for the state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
That was the mandate laid down by Florida House Bill 1503, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Previous law had required only one appointment for agents.
“Agents who are unable to, or choose not to obtain the required appointments will lose the ability to write, service, or renew business in that line of authority,” the bulletin notes.
The logic behind the law is not disputed: More appointments give agents and insureds more choices when seeking or renewing coverage, agents have pointed out. If an agent is appointed only with one or two carriers, and one of those is Citizens, it’s more likely that the policyholder will end up with the corporation that was created to be something of an insurer of last resort for the state.
“It’s not a bad thing for consumers,” said Karen Roeling, a commercial lines producer with Seibert Insurance Agency in Tampa. “It gives more options.”
NC Body Shop Owner Charged With Using Used Parts, Billing for New
A North Carolina body shop owner in April was charged with fraud in connection with the use of used auto parts, instead of new parts that the insurer had paid for.
The state Insurance Commissioner’s office said that Christopher Mark Rogers, 51, of Dallas, North Carolina, had failed to use new parts in repairs. National General Insurance Co. had paid him for new parts in May of 2023, the office said.
Rogers is the owner of CRM Collision, in Mooresville, which has been in business for 20 years, the Iredell Free Press reported.
The alleged fraud would be considered a felony, NCDOI noted.
Florida OIR Approves Another 54,000 Citizens Takeouts. More on the Way
Takeout offers of policies from Citizens, Florida’s state-created property insurer, became a regular event in 2024, as more primary insurers embraced a warming Florida market.
In March, Florida’s insurance commissioner approved a round of takeouts from the state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corp., with assumption dates in May.
That brings the total takeouts with 2024 assumptions to more than 354,134, the Office of Insurance Regulation reported.
The takeouts, mostly for personal residential policies, support Citizens’ long-stated depopulation plan. As of late March, the corporation remained at more than 1.16 million policies in force, down slightly from late last year and keeping it as the largest property insurer in the state. By the end of 2024, Citizen’s policy count had dropped to 988,000.
If 2023’s numbers are any indication, the number of takeouts accepted by policyholders may be low. For the 646,600 takeout offers made in 2023, only about 130,400 policies were removed from Citizens – a rate of 20%, OIR reports show.
Here’s a video discussing popular Southeast articles, produced by Wells Media Group editors and our new-media team.