Tag: Florida Homeowners Insurance Attorneys

In late May, Coastal Breeze News featured an important article discussing when homeowners have tried for long enough to settle their Hurricane Irma claims with their insurance carriers, and whether there has been insurance bad faith. Below, we discuss this issue in greater detail.

Florida Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights

Florida has what’s known as the Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights, which every insurance company providing residential property insurance policies must provide to homeowners within 14 days of receiving any initial communication related to a claim (with the exception of any “state of emergency” declared by the Governor).

Specifically, the Bill of Rights provides that you have the right to:

The Bill of Rights also provides a number of recommendations, including:

Note, however, that the Bill of Rights does not create a civil cause of action against an insurer. When an insurance company acts in bad faith, a separate law in Florida creates a statutory bad faith cause of action against the insurance company which allows homeowners to recover costs and attorneys’ fees if they prevail. Still, it is wise to work with an experienced attorney to first file a Civil Remedy Notice with the Florida Department of Financial Services that the insurance company is acting in bad faith.

According to recent reports, the top 20 property insurers in Florida were served with more than 10,000 lawsuits over hurricane Irma claim denials just between January and March, reflecting a more than 61 percent increase from last year.

Universal Property & Casualty Co.—Florida’s largest insurer—noted that the company has received close to 80,000 Hurricane Irma-related claims, including many from Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. In addition, Irma-related claims account for close to 60 percent of all new claim-related litigation filed against Citizens Property Insurance Co. (the second largest insurer in Florida).

Inadequate Recovery Also Remains an Issue

Not all of these claims involve outright denials; a good percentage also involve challenges to the companies’ decisions about the scope of damages, arguing that the amount paid to homeowners was inadequate. A good percentage also involved the determination that policyholders were owed nothing at all because the loss calculated did not surpass the policy deductible.

You may not realize that, even as of early February, Florida still technically has 17 weeks left of hurricane season, with more and more potential property damage looming. As a result, emergency management officials in Sarasota and surrounding areas are scrambling to put lessons learned after Irma into practice to get ahead of more damage that could be coming to the state of Florida.

Two-thirds of hurricane-related deaths occur due to flooding and storm surge. Some of this organizing involves identifying which buildings can serve as emergency shelters, as well, as how evacuation centers are opened to the public and are both wheelchair-accessible and pet friendly.

Applying For Funding

What does this mean for all of the property damage, and the many individuals dealing with filing insurance claims, and either having those claims denied or delayed? Sarasota County is reportedly in line to receive $8 million in state mitigation funding to make structures more resilient in general.

To say that many Florida families have been waiting for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after Hurricane Irma is an understatement: It has been over a month, and still, many families are waiting  for someone to come out and just inspect their flood-damaged homes so that they can move on and apply for assistance. While the agency arguably worked to address immediate needs, it has been completely inadequate at addressing the aftermath and in providing basic disaster assistance.

Many are now waiting for FEMA payments and/or have had their applications for assistance unjustly denied. One of the biggest issues is the backlog of properties to inspect, as citizens are not eligible to receive federal assistance until a FEMA inspector analyzes any damage done by the hurricane. Yet, as of now, the average wait for an inspection is one month in Florida, with some reportedly waiting more than 50 days. This has many, instead, placing their faith in filing effective insurance claims to try and rebuild their lives and properties after the disaster.

Florida property owners have thus far filed reportedly $2 billion in claims to their insurance companies seeking assistance for damage caused by Hurricane Irma. The storm was ranked as one of the most powerful to hit the Atlantic, and killed at least 33 people in the state of Florida alone.

It is crucial that insurance companies are prompt in responding to hurricane claims, as the more time that passes without access to their homes, the more unnecessary costs they experience. Your level of protection largely depends upon what protection your state offers you.

Yet, while the state of Florida’s two largest insurers—Universal Property & Casualty and State Farm—have indicated that they have plenty of resources to ensure that their clients are taken care of after the storm, thousands of people in Florida are reportedly being told that their insurance policies will not cover the losses they sustained, indicating that they may have a fight ahead of them in getting the protection they’ve already been paying for years.

Recently, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that lenders can refile foreclosure cases against homeowners who are still in default, even if the case was initiated more than five years ago (i.e. past the statute of limitations). This effectively now gives banks in the state the right to bring cases back to life, meaning that delinquent Florida homeowners may now be getting foreclosure notices after years of delay (more than five years). This latest ruling effectively provides the lenders with as much leeway as they need to start foreclosure proceedings all over again, but it’s important to note that there are caveats to the ruling in terms of foreclosure defense.

What the New Foreclosure Ruling Means

This ruling has left many homeowners concerned, as some experts have indicated that this could allow the banks to resolve open foreclosures and place more and more homes up for sale. In general, when homeowners stop making payments, many of them hope to get their mortgage modified. However, lenders have the option of, instead, filing a foreclosure action.