The Florida Home Insurance coverage and Banking Subcommittee was clearly upset with rising insurance coverage charges and poor claims dealing with, as famous in Take part In Your Democracy—Even If You Are Known as a Bazooka. I used to be at all times instructed that an sincere particular person has nothing to cover. If that’s the case, why don’t we require the insurance coverage firms to show over the claims file supplies in a property insurance coverage declare absent an insurance coverage firm’s suspicion of fraud or legal conduct?
I raised this challenge earlier than in “Ought to All States Require Insurance coverage Firms to Flip Claims Information Over to Policyholders?” I particularly famous a California statute that Florida legislators ought to think about copying that requires insurers to supply to policyholders inside fifteen days of their request all claim-related paperwork:
. . . that relate to the analysis of damages, together with, however not restricted to, restore and alternative estimates and bids, value determinations, scopes of loss, drawings, plans, experiences, third-party findings on the quantity of loss, coated damages, and price of repairs, and all different valuation, measurement, and loss adjustment calculations of the quantity of loss, coated harm, and price of repairs. 1
I recommend that the statute be worded to say “all claims file supplies, together with however not restricted to….”
I additional raised the opportunity of such a laws final 12 months in Florida Invoice Proposes Declare File Transparency. Had that invoice handed, the Florida Home of Representatives might have had the reply to their questions as a result of constituents would have the claims file supplies explaining why the insurance coverage firms weren’t paying claims absolutely or on time. Alternatively, the dangerous claims actions might by no means have occurred as a result of the insurers would have identified they might not conceal the reality about their claims dealing with—the policyholders would discover out what was within the claims file.
A further drawback with Florida’s present scheme for claims estimate transparency is that nothing is holding the insurance coverage firm accountable for its failure to show over the estimates, as I famous in Let’s Get Robust on Drunk Driving however Not Have Any Penalties For the Drunk Driver: Making It Troublesome For Policyholders To Accumulate On Money owed Owed By Delaying and Underpaying Insurance coverage Firms.
The underside line is that, as my mom at all times instructed me, “honesty is the most effective coverage.” If you need honesty from insurance coverage firms, we’ve to have enforceable transparency about how the declare is being dealt with. The way in which for that to happen is for the policyholder to have entry to all claims file supplies.
Thought For The Day
“For those who inform the reality, you don’t have to recollect something.”
—Mark Twain
