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Floridians In Action, FIA |
| Floridians in Action is a community interest group conceived to maintain oversight of issues that have a dramatic impact in the lives of Floridians. Our first campaign is called "Insured Floridians In Action", which will deal with property insurance issues and the lowering of these rates. Our mission is to voice the opinions, ideas and discontent of Floridians, at the lack of our state elected and appointed officials in Tallahassee to face big insurance during the past few years. We have put together a petition drive addressed to the Florida Legislature as well as the governor requesting an immediate revision of property insurance issues and rates at the next legislative session. We will make the following suggestions as we have discussed them with various officials who agree this could bring immediate relief to property owners. 1. Elimination of the imaginary hurricane boundary line that runs up US1 and causes higher rates for all property east of this line. As if Hurricanes followed map lines. 2. Eliminate the excessive insurance coverage required for mortgaged property by insuring only the amount of the structure and not the value of the land and structure. 3. Make South Florida building code the statewide code thereby assuring more hurricane proof homes are built and thereby reducing the exposure of the insurance companies. 4. Look into a state reinsurance pool that would reduce the costs of insurance companies to reinsure, passing these savings on to property owners. 5. Stop big insurance from using Florida subsidiaries as a way to show huge losses in this state, while being able to protect their national profits. This is an abusive and deceptive tactic that should no longer be allowed to continue. 6. Lobby Washington for a National Catastrophe insurance plan or a Hurricane insurance plan for the states most prone to these events. |
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One of the arguments Insurance Companies
want us to believe is that the increase is necessary as they have
lost a lot of money in the last couple of Hurricane Seasons however,
the numbers confirm that despite of all the hurricanes insurance
companies have made money and lots of it. According to the
Insurance Information Institute, they show profits of $15.1
billion dollars in the first 6 months of 2006. The insurance companies that have gone out of business like the Poe Financial family which included several companies: a) Atlantic Preferred
Insurance Company, Ways in Which they Reduce Coverage:
In the State of Florida whenever an insurance company needs and/or wants to make changes it must be approved by the state. Currently the state has to approve whatever changes the insurance companies want without getting any input from the insured or from a group with the public’s best interest at heart leaving the homeowner at a disadvantage, since there are no Advocacy Groups that represent the insured, that is why we came up with the idea to create our group. |
Examples of Arbitrary Changes• There are insurance companies
that require that the insured report their claim directly to them
BEFORE they can consult it with their attorney, and/or Public
Adjuster (see example below). |
Another "trend" we have been
seeing is that there are companies that will include the following
statement in the back AND the front of the check that tit is a full
and final payment, and/or an endorsement of said loss draft (check)
is “release in full settlement”, which leaves the insured at risk.
 This is the kind of ABUSE that we are just tired of and have decided to “TAKE ACTION:” This kind of abuse is unacceptable! That’s like the requesting permission from your realtor to speak or consult it with your Real Estate Attorney. This is inconceivable! |
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Please bear with
us |
