Florida regulators announced today that Friday they will hold the latest in a series of hearings on home insurers' requests to raise rates in the state following last year's huge hurricane losses.
The upcoming proceedings were scheduled by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation for the Senate Office Building, in Tallahassee, Fla., after filings by Universal Property and Casualty Insurance Company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Sunshine State Insurance Company, St. Augustine, Fla.
Universal has requested a 43 percent average statewide rate increase for its dwelling fire insurance, a less comprehensive homeowners policy.
Sunshine State has requested a 70.7 percent average statewide rate increase for its Everglades Program, a 59.6 percent increase for its Qualsure Preferred Program, and a 56.2 percent increase for its Qualsure Assumed Program.
The Sunshine rate filing was made July 28 and Universal's comes after a refilling from June 30.
Jonathon Kees, a spokesman for the office, said the office has 90 days to make a decision after the hearing.
He said of the 14 rate hearings to date, the one with the greatest impact was held for State Farm Floridian Insurance Company, which with 852,000 home insureds is the largest private admitted carrier in the state.
State Farm on July 18 was granted a 52.7 percent statewide average increase. The company initially had submitted a request for a 79 percent average statewide increase.
A notice of the hearings by the office noted that the requested rates are not uniform and some areas in the state are subject to higher or lower rate changes.
Florida law requires that the office hold public hearings on rate filings for statewide average increases exceeding 15 percent when a private model is used or for any purpose seen as necessary by the office.
Video or auto recordings of the hearings are posted online at http://www.floir.com/pcfr/RateHearingVideo.htm. The office said persons unable to attend the public hearings are welcome to forward comments to ratehearings@fldfs.com. The subject line of e-mails should include the name of the company of interest and the words rate hearings.
An agenda for the Universal hearing is online at http://www.floir.com/pdf/AgendaUniversal.pdf and for the Sunshine at http://www.floir.com/pdf/AgendaSunshineState.pdf.
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