Florida's largest property insurer, Universal Property & Casualty, has received approval from Florida insurance regulators to increase its rates an average 9.9 percent for a majority of the company's single family homeowners in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
Of 10 South Florida rate territories, only non-coastal areas of Palm Beach County will get increases averaging less than 9.9 percent. The increase in that territory is 5.5 percent.
On Wednesday, state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. said the state approved its application to increase its rates about 10 percent throughout the region.
Universal, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, insures 120,625 single-family homes in the three counties_ most of any home insurer. Citizens, the second largest, insures 92,891 single-family homes.
Insurers have for several years lobbied the Legislature _ unsuccessfully _ for reforms to restrict the ability of policyholders to sign over claims benefits to third-party water damage restoration companies. They say vendors submit inflated invoices, then work with plaintiffs' attorneys to file suit when the insurer denies or fails to pay the full invoice.
Attorneys encourage "assignment of benefits" so they can collect legal fees when insurers lose in court or decide to settle lawsuits, insurers say.
But unlike Citizens' approved rate filings, which imposed large increases in only a few areas outside South Florida and decreases most everywhere else, Universal's rate changes vary widely in the rest of the state.
They range from 9.9 percent increases in parts of Duval, Martin, Orange, Polk, Osceola, Okeechobee, Jackson, Highlands, Citrus, Dixie and Leon counties, and 9.9 percent rate decreases in parts of Pinellas, Okaloosa and Bay counties and a 6.5 percent decrease in a large part of Sarasota County.
Justifying those rate changes are a large and complicated set of documents showing risk factors, loss trends and expenses that only trained insurance actuaries can comprehend.
Asked by email late Thursday if he could explain why so many territories outside South Florida were being hit with 9.9 percent rate increases, Universal spokesman Travis Miller, an attorney with Radey Law Firm, declined to offer specifics.
Nancy Dominguez, managing director of the Florida Association of Public Insurance Adjusters, said claims rates are likely higher in other heavily populated regions where Universal is imposing steep rate increases.
Where claims rates are higher, policyholders are more likely to seek representation "because it typically results in a higher, more fair and complete payment to the policyholder," driving insurance costs _ and rates _ higher, she said.
