Where fraud lives

I used to live in Florida, so no surprise here: State investigators are considering criminal charges after finding regulatory violations in almost 90 percent of the pain clinics that treat automobile accident victims in Miami-Dade County. A three-day sweep found irregularities in 43 of 49 clinics investigated in a three-day sweep. During those checks, investigators [...]

Fraud besieges Florida no-fault

I used to live there, so I feel comfortable in saying Florida never saw a scam it didn’t like. Friday, PCI blew the lid (.doc) off Florida no-fault fraud. Regrettably, the Florida no fault system is completely broken. There are more auto lawsuits in Florida than other no fault states, rates are climbing due to [...]

FL HO market: Undercapitalized?

Snagging some confidential documents from the Department of Insurance, Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter Paige St. John questions the financial strength of several leading Florida homeowners insurers, including the state’s largest private HO writer – Universal P&C – and the Florida arms of Allstate and State Farm. (Let’s add quickly: Allstate Florida and State Farm Florida are [...]

Wisconsin repays the insurer it robbed

In follow up to this post, I’m happy to see Wisconsin is doing this: Madison – The state will pay nearly $234 million to settle a bill on a past raid to a state medical malpractice fund, Gov. Scott Walker announced Wednesday. The state Supreme Court last year ordered the money be repaid after finding [...]

Spectre of fraud haunts FL property market

Among the myriad problems the Florida homeowners market suffers: fraud-like behavior. (Via RiskMarketNews on twitter) Sayeth the Palm Beach Post: The state requires insurers to issue discounts if a property is solidly built – credit for having hurricane shutters or specially installed straps to hold a roof in place. Only problem – most properties that [...]

Citizens Property and investment income

Actuarial Outpost has picked up my post about how Florida’s state HO insurer, Citizens Property, can’t remain solvent through a substantial storm. The very sensible Outpost question  – what about the investment income? Unfortunately, as this snip from the 2011 budget (around page 12 of this pdf) shows, Citizens posts net investment losses: That line [...]

Cat (model) fighting

Guy Carpenter recently had a nice briefing on RMS’s movement to version 11 of its North America hurricane model. RMS is the market leader in cat modeling and its changes will influence what reinsurers charge for property covers. That, in turn, will affect the consumer price for homeowners and commercial property insurance. According to the [...]

Florida’s HO insurance: Overpriced?

I’d love to say yes. And Karen Clark’s study of cat modeling, released this week, points that way. Fort Lauderdale’s Sun-Sentinel: Hurricane risk prediction methods that property insurers use to help calculate premiums were off by $34.8 billion to $53 billion the past five years, according to a new report by the founder of the [...]

Cat models: All wet?

Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter Paige St. John is questioning the clothing choices of cat modeling emperor RMS in a well-sourced series that makes a lot of good points if you can get past all of the insurance bashing. However, the case she proves is not the one I think she wants to make. She accuses the [...]

This just in….

Stuff too interesting to let pass: Florida continues to pave the way for global reinsurers to enter the market by easing the requirements for them to do business. The regulator understands, even if some journalists do not, that the state’s HO market would be an even bigger mess than it is. David Merkel has an [...]