FPCA Automobile Division: ATTACHMENTS INCLUDED — Personal Injury Protection Update
Dec 17, 2010
NOTE: The included attachments were omitted from the previous e-mail.
FPCA Automobile Division Members:
At this time it appears that we have secured a House sponsor for a “litigation reform” proposal on PIP that will focus on attorneys’ fees, but that also includes other litigation reforms measures like a Custer fix, a Shaw fix, strengthening the verbal threshold and an arbitration proposal. Once the potential sponsor has an opportunity to review the draft and discuss its provisions with additional legislators we will have a better idea of what the filed version of this bill will look like. Based on our preliminary conversations with the sponsor and with Legislative leadership we have crafted an initial bill draft that we plan to submit to the sponsor for his review. Again – the sponsor has only agreed to sponsor legislation relating to litigation matters at this time and has not had an opportunity to specifically review and discuss this proposal, so the filed bill may be different then the attached proposal. After review the sponsor may not be comfortable with some of the provisions in this draft, but we thought this was a good place to start on “litigation reforms.”
As we have previously reported, certain key legislative leaders do not appear to be interested in promoting a bill with significant “medical” reforms on PIP – and it appears this message is being reiterated to members. We can look for additional sponsors to carry legislation relating to medical components but it may be difficult to secure sponsors and even more difficult to move the bill. One other political component to consider is that we are being told that committee chairs and sub-committee chairs have been instructed not to file legislation at this time, and that the Speaker may not want them to file legislation at all. That will shrink the pool of members available to file legislation.
Additionally, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation plans to issue a data call on PIP matters sometime next week. The OIR is in the process of developing the data call but has given us a draft spreadsheet for review and comment. It is also attached.
The OIR plans to host a conference call on Monday, December 20, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. to discuss comments and concerns with the data call, so please review and respond as quickly as possible.
Should you have any questions, please contact Katie Webb (kwebb@cftlaw.com).
