Capitol to Courthouse Florida Insurance Report: Monday, October 7

Oct 7, 2013

 

To go directly to the section of your choice, click on a hyperlink below.  Other hyperlinks to meeting information, bills and news are noted in bold type.

 

 

Daily Florida Insurance-Related Events

 

There are no events scheduled for today.

 

 

Daily Florida Insurance-Related News


Florida Realtors tout international sales, but fight over insurance could come back

Real estate deals with overseas buyers made up 8 percent of all sales in the year ending in July, according to a Florida Realtors survey, the group announced Friday, The Florida Current’s Gray Rohrer reports.

 

Blog:  Weatherford weighs in on flood insurance with letter to Boehner and Reid

House Speaker Will Weatherford, a Wesley Chapel Republican, added his voice to the chorus of Florida leaders pleading with Congress to get back to work and amend the flawed flood insurance reform act that took effect this week, Mary Ellen Klas reports in the Miami Herald’s “Naked Politics” blog.

 

Blog:  Homeowners should do their homework when reviewing flood insurance rates

Homeowners hit with substantial increases in their flood insurance as a result of recent changes in the federal program should do their homework, experts say, because there may be ways to lower their bills, Mary Ellen Klas explains in the Miami Herald’s “Naked Politics” blog.

 

Blog:  Polls, perils and pluses of disaster

As Tropical Storm Karen churned offshore, Gov. Rick Scott swiftly ditched an annual state Republican fundraiser even though he’s an embattled incumbent, the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo reports on “Naked Politics.”

 

Florida’s Second District Court Reverses $7 Million Homeowners Damage Award in Naples Case

Florida’s Second District Court recently reversed and remanded a Naples, Florida case for a new trial in which the causation of the homeowners’ loss is to be examined under the efficient proximate cause theory.  The case explored the question of whether multiple perils are dependent or independent, and that relevancy under a concurrent causation analysis.

 

Florida Zombie Homes Poised to Haunt

Vampires and zombies are haunting houses in record numbers across Southwest Florida – and it has nothing to do with Halloween, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Josh Salman reports.

 

First District Court of Appeal Tackles Uninsured/Underinsured Stacked Motorist Coverage

A recent appeal arose from a final judgment that determined waivers of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage and uninsured/underinsured stacked coverage, as well as an owned-but-not-insured vehicle exclusion that were agreed to by the original policyholder.

 

Private-Property Rights Advocates Still Mopping Up in Landmark Florida Case

Coy Koontz Jr. and his wife Linda, retired now and living quietly in the North Carolina mountains, are still not finished with perhaps the most monumental property-rights case ever filed in Florida — even though they won in the U.S. Supreme Court, Nancy Smith reports for SunshineStateNews.com.

 

Senator Hukill targets biometrics in schools

A Polk County school incident this year had parents brushing up on George Orwell and led Florida Senator Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, to write two bills designed to keep Big Brother away from small children, The Florida Current’s James Call reports.

 

Families seek $2.6 million for Chinese drywall damage

A panel of judges in the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Wednesday that will set them up to decide in the coming weeks whether Chinese drywall manufacturer Taishan Gypsum Co. Ltd. can be held accountable in American courts for its tainted products, Sarah Kleiner Varble writes for the Virginian Pilot.

 

Federal Force-Placed Case in New York Carries Strong Precedent

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, and a judge’s recent ruling prompted by that suit, is further raising the financial stakes for insurance carriers who provided force-placed coverage for mortgage servicers during the housing bust and its aftermath, Arthur Postal reports for National Underwriter’s PropertyCasualty360.com.

 

Study:  States Show Disparity in Post-Claim Homeowners Premium Increases

Minnesota, Connecticut and Maryland residents experience the highest premium increases on their homeowner’s policies after paying one claim, reports a new study from InsuranceQuotes, Insurance Journal’s Ana Khalamayzer reports.

 

Wall Street Journal:  New York’s Top Financial Regulator Signals Some Flexibility in Insurance Reserve Math

Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s aggressive watchdog of financial-services companies, has offered an olive branch to the life-insurance industry following a war of words over their widely different views of how future obligations to millions of policyholders should be calculated, the Wall Street Journal’s Leslie Scism reports.

 

 

Click here to follow Colodny Fass& Webb on Twitter (@CFTLAWcom)

 

 

 

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, please send an e-mail to Brooke Ellis at bellis@cftlaw.com.