The Home Insurance Guru

The HO8 policy is a stripped down version of an HO3 regular Home Insurance policy. Citizens HO3 is already stripped down so the only 2 things to remove is coverage for water claims and relacement cost on the contents. Regulators with the Florida OIR want these options available, but the rates would be so close to the HO 3 why bother and now more would be attracted to Citizens instead of having them look  elsewhere which is the goal. Jeff Grady of the FAIA seems very disappointed with this new policy and the issues as it is “another good idea gone bad.” If the regulators would simply let Citizens determine their own rates to be actuarily sound, they would be much higher.This is what barry Gilway of citizens and Governor Rick scott want anyway. Then the HO8 option would see better for some, but the ones who want to shop will find themselves saving money because the rate Hikes would be 25% or more annually. In Fort Lauderdale this means up to 50% in some areas and then everyone will want to shop and depopulation will be much easier as well. My agency would not want to sell the HO8 policy as it has no water claim coverage and it seems that most claims we see come from water issues with older pipes. I do not like finding myself in court with clients that forget this point and when a claim occurs all they want to do is sue me so I avaoid the issue. Please call L & S Insurance at 1-888-244-7400 for quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, business & Commercial and life Insurance as well and please enjoy the full article below;

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2012/12/19/274677.htm

CEO Barry Gilway will now stop trying to push this plan and try to change it by the Legislative session. The problems were that the Insurance companies had to keep the policies for 10 years and the premium cap was to be like Citizens at 10%. With that Knowldge the plan will fail. In the meantime Citizens and Governor Rick Scott  will also keep trying to work on a Keep out plan, but with Captive agents like State Farm they only add to the problem here in  Florida and Fort Lauderdale. Since they cannot write for any other carrier, every policy they write, weather it should or not, is put Into Citizens and then tell the clients  it is the best thing for them. This is the root of the problem and why we have removed 250K in policies this year, but added over 300K  because of State Farm agents and others that have  3 carriers to sell or less. This accounts for 28% of all agents and in S. Florida I am sure it is way more than that. This is what really needs to be resolved first as well as red lining issues that we cannot discuss here. Please call L & S Insurance at 1-888-244-7400 for quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, Business & Commercial and Life Insurance as well. Please enjoy the full article below;

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2012/12/14/274160.htm

Investigations, accusations, Governor Rick Scott,Barry Gilway, State Rep Frank Artilles,State Rep Mike  Fasano, A National Cat Fund and The Blame game are all in this article from the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinal, and writtten by Charlotte Greenberg and sent to me by our friends at First State Insurance. This is like, no This is, a Soap Opera clearly and all of us are the recipients of higher rates and mismangement and misconduct at a minimum. Please read the full article about Citizens Home Insurance and see what the next Legislative session in 2013 will be all about and then in 2014 new elections for  the Governor’s race as well. Please call L & S at 1-888-244-7400 for quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, Business & Commercial Coverage and Life Insurance as well.

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/condoblog/2012/12/citizens%e2%80%99-events-unfold-fast-and-furious.html

If Citizens is going to depopulate or raise rates significantly, they must be fiscally reviewed to truly determine what condition it is in to pay claims now and if and when depopulation occurs. We already know that Citizens has 6 Billion in reserves and some bond issues for perhaps 3-6 billion more, but who knows. Hurricane Sandy will cost 25-30 billion in The NY, NJ and New England area so obviouly we are a little short. It does not take  Rocket science to figure this one out, but The Sate Representative Frank Artilles  wants it so now it must be done. Talk about sound bites to get your name in the paper. I will continue to bring this info to all that come visit the Home Insurance Guru in Fort Lauderdale, but we service all of Florida. Please read the full story below and call L & S Insurance at 1-888-244-7400 for all of your quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, Business & Commercial and Life Insurance as well.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2012/12/07/273164.htm

For quite some time I have posted articles  about Citizens wanting to raise rates 25% or more annually and they are Governmant mandated to be at 10% as a statewide average. In the next Congresional session, they will now discuss Citizens being able to make the rates fiscally sound which means large rate hikes in 2014 or sooner. Fort Lauderdale and all of South Florida will get the biggest hit as rates could jump 25-50% here as we are all hit harder then North of Lake Okeechobee. This will make sure that if The CEO of Citizens Barry Gilway  and Governor Rick  Scott cannot depopulate as they have tried then the rates must go up to make Citizens financially sound and priced so that people will stop choosing them because of price. Citizens should always be chosen based on the inability to get Insurance from the Private market which is still quite good in most areas. Please read the full article below and call L & S at 1-888-244-7400 for all of your quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, Business & Commercial and Life Insurance as well.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2012/12/06/272983.htm

Citizens Insurance under Barry Gilway the CEO since mid year, will drop more than 300K policies this year, which is more than the last several years combined. But now, Citizens Insurance  will look to try a new plan of Keep out. Since they are receiving more than 8K policies per week, they must slow this down to get the numbers down in the Citizens Book of business. we should here more in the next several weeks as to the details of the plan, but if the business can go to the Private market then the consumer will be better off. The Citizens policy is one of the worst in the industry and they are not trying to be the bext policy either. Since our legislatire will not do what it takes to reduce Citizens, which is a huge rate hike, other programs must be tried and will likly succeed as well. Please read the full article below sent to us by our friends at First State Insurance and written by Michael Peltier of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinal below.  Please call L & S at 1-888-244-7400 for quotes on Home, Auto, Flood, Business & Comercial, and Life Insurance as well.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-nsf-citizens-brokering-policies-20121130,0,2912492.story