July 2019 – Florida Justice Reform Institute

Citizens Property Insurance: AOB reform good for consumers, ‘jury still out’ on litigation portion.

July 20, 2019/in Florida Record

FLORIDA RECORD

Citizens Property Insurance: AOB reform good for consumers, ‘jury still out’ on litigation portion

By Karen Kidd | Jul 20, 2019

Windshield

TALLAHASSEE (Florida Record) – Assignment of benefits (AOB) reforms that took effect earlier this week will be a boon for consumers but it isn’t clear whether litigation provisions will reduce lawsuit abuse in Florida, according to a spokesman for the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

“The jury is still out,” Citizens Property Insurance media relations manager Michael Peltier told Florida Record, noting that litigation provisions AOB reform went into effect when it was signed in May. “It’s still too early to tell. We don’t have any hard numbers on litigation trends.”

AOB litigation reform is intended to benefit consumers by forcing parties, generally insurance companies and contracts, in an AOB lawsuit to consider reasonable offers, Peltier said.

“In a situation where you have an AOB, the law sets up parameters for who pays attorneys fees based on how different the final claims amount is from what was originally offered,” Peltier said. “If both offers are reasonable – and ‘reasonable’ is something that has to be determined – if generally speaking both parties provide reasonable offers, then each side pays their own attorney fees.”

Under AOB reform, if final award in a case is much higher than the original estimate, then the insurance company will pay attorney fees, but if final award comes out to be close to or less than what the insurance company originally offered, then the contractor pays attorney fees, Peltier said.

“It puts skin in the game for all parties in AOB suits,” he said. “In situations where homeowners are on their own, the law hasn’t changed.”

The Florida legislature created Citizens Property Insurance Corporation in August 2002 to be a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, government entity with a goal of providing insurance protection to Florida policyholders who can’t find private property insurance.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation defines an assignment of benefits as “a document signed by a policyholder that allows a third party, such as a water extraction company, a roofer or a plumber, to ‘stand in the shoes’ of the insured and seek direct payment from the insurance company.”

AOBs, in themselves, don’t have to be especially problematic. AOBs are common in health care, where providers will bill insurance companies on behalf of patients.

AOBs became a problem in Florida, where they became prevalent in water and roof claims across the state, according to the Office of Insurance Regulation’s website.

Reform advocates for years asserted that unscrupulous contractors devised a way to game the system of AOBs at the expense of insurance companies and their policyholders and the problems mounted from there. A study issued by the Florida Justice Reform Institute reported that 11 attorneys filed about 25 percent of all AOB-related cases in Florida between 2013 and 2016.

Each new natural disaster seemed to create blooms of AOB-based litigation in Florida.

In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the major assignment of benefits (AOB) reform, Senate Bill 122, which passed the general assembly the previous month.

AOB reforms in the new law took effect July 1, while litigation reforms took effect the day DeStanis signed the legislation, Peltier said.

“As of July 1, consumers will have a little more time to make up their minds as far as AOBs are concerned,” he said. “If they change their mind after they have signed one, the law gives them a little more time to weigh their options and make decisions after the fact.”

That’s important because consumers often make decisions about singing AOBs when they are under stress, Peltier said.

“Often times with AOBs, you have situations like water spewing out of your water heater at 2 in the morning,” Peltier said. “Someone comes to your house and you’re willing to sign anything just to get the water to stop. The underpinnings of this reform is to give consumers more of a chance made educated decisions about what can be a very expensive repair.”

Consumers in Florida now have 14 days after signing an AOB to cancel that agreement if they want, Peltier said. Victims of natural disasters such as a hurricane, who find it difficult to find a contractor, now are able to cancel AOBs if after 30 days no substantial progress has been made toward repairs, he said.

AOB reform also is intended to make things easier on the consumer who finds their repairs the subject of litigation by strongly encouraging insurance companies and contractor to be agreeable about final costs, Peltier said.

“The consumer is the one who has to wait out the legal process,” he said. “The faster that both parties can come to an agreement, the quicker repairs are made and the consumer can be made whole.”

https://flarecord.com/stories/512691993-citizens-property-insurance-aob-reform-good-for-consumers-jury-still-out-on-litigation-portion

AOB law in effect should lower insurance premiums in Sunshine State, reformer predicts.

July 12, 2019/in Florida Record

FLORIDA RECORD

AOB law in effect should lower insurance premiums in Sunshine State, reformer predicts

LEGISLATION

By John Suayan | Jul 12, 2019

William Large

TALLAHASSEE — Consumers statewide should finally see an end to rising insurance premiums because of a new law that took effect July 1.

House Bill 7065 reforms assignment of benefits (AOB) law, which critics argued got out of control with lawyers teaming up with contractors to get homeowners to sign away their insurance rights. In exchange for the assignment, lawyers who took advantage of the law would promise to handle repairs to the homeowners’ property and often file inflated claims with an end game of getting insurers to pay legal fees.

William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, praised Gov. Ron DeSantis for prioritizing passage of AOB reform, House Bill 7065.

“Gov. DeSantis really rolled his sleeves up to get this done. He showed incredible leadership during the legislative session,” Large said. “It is obvious the governor is first and foremost concerned about Florida’s consumers.”

What was arguably the official end to a decade-long fight for reform took place in late May when DeSantis signed the measure..

“HB 7065 establishes important consumer protections for property insurance policies by setting forth requirements for the execution, validity and effect of such agreements, and creating a formula that will determine which party, if any, receives an award of attorney fees should litigation related to an assignment agreement result in a judgment,” according to a statement released by DeSantis’ office.

“This reform bill is expected to curtail the exponential growth in AOB abuse that has contributed to rising insurance costs for Floridians.”

DeSantis, a Republican, lauded lawmakers for getting the bill passed.

“I thank the Florida Legislature for passing meaningful AOB reform, which has become a racket in recent years,” he said. “This legislation will protect Florida consumers from predatory insurance practices.”

Large predicts consumers will see lower premiums.

“This will have a positive impact on Florida’s consumers,” Large said. “I believe it will lead to decreased insurance premiums in the future.”

A report from Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation had predicted that insurers would have to raise premiums 10 percent or more annually to break even, because of the cost in defending AOB claims. The insurance regulator indicated that in 2017, in Miami-Dade County, the owner of a $150,000 home paid an average annual premium of $2,678 for multi-peril insurance from Citizens Property Insurance Corp. — higher than twice the national average.

https://flarecord.com/stories/512713319-aob-law-in-effect-should-lower-insurance-premiums-in-sunshine-state-reformer-predicts

The changing judiciary: Gov. DeSantis appoints the people who’ll help him shape Florida’s courts.

July 2, 2019/in Florida Phoenix

The changing judiciary: Gov. DeSantis appoints the people who’ll help him shape Florida’s courts

July 2, 2019

Florida Supreme Court

Gov. Ron DeSantis has named 66 people to sit on the panels that nominate candidates for judgeships at every level, continuing the process of remaking the state’s judiciary.

From civil litigation to criminal trials and lofty arguments about privacy rights and the death penalty, these panels will help select judges who will decide what the law says in ways that will reshape how Floridians live and work.

Already since taking office, DeSantis has moved the nine-member Florida Supreme Court court decisively to the right through appointment of three conservatives following the retirement of justices who helped comprise the court’s liberal wing.

The 66 people DeSantis appointed Monday evening will help fill any future vacancies on the high court, plus the five intermediate appellate courts that decide a large number of important cases each year, and every trial court in the state.

The new commissioners will nominate justices and judges who are more deferential to the Legislature, predicted William Large, president of the conservative Florida Justice Reform Institute, depending on the case at hand.

“The type of judges or justices who will come out of this process would understand that their role is not that of the policymaking branch of government. The policymaking branch of government is the legislative branch,” Large said.

In other words, the process will produce “texturalists” – “judges and justices who will say what the law is and not what it should be,” he said.

The appointees include Jeanne Tate and Daniel Nordby to seats on the Florida Supreme Court Nominating Commission. Tate is managing partner of Jeanne T. Tate P.A. in Tampa and specializes in adoption law. Nordby is a partner in the Tallahassee office of Schutts & Bowen LLP and specializes in constitutional, administrative, and elections litigation.

DeSantis’ new Supreme Court justices are Carlos Genaro Muñiz, a former aide to former Gov. Jeb Bush and state Attorney General Pam Bondi. He more recently served as general counsel to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck, both former federal prosecutors who served on the 3rd District Court of Appeal.

DeSantis, a Harvard-trained lawyer, has said that he looks for jurists who respect what he considers the proper role of judges – not liberal activists like the old Supreme Court majority, whose rulings occasionally frustrated the Republican legislative agenda by striking down state laws. Issues now pending before the Supreme Court include interpretation of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, the death penalty, plus the access to abortion and other privacy rights.

“He understands the proper role of the court,” DeSantis said of Muniz, for example, when announcing his appointment. “I think that is a very useful perspective to be able to bring to the court, particularly because one of the criticisms I’ve had with the court is that they have not understood their proper jurisdiction and they have expanded beyond where they should.”

Each commission contains nine members, four of whom are nominated to the governor by the Florida Bar. The other five the governor directly appoints. The members must live within the jurisdiction they serve. Governors convene these panels when a vacancy occurs through resignation, retirement, death, or elevation of a sitting judge. They then screen applicants and by majority vote submit at least three or at most six nominees to the governor.

DeSantis’ office forced the resignation of the chairman of the JNC for the 18th Judicial Circuit, the trial court for Brevard and Seminole counties, after ordering that panel to recommend a specific candidate for a trial court vacancy, Politico Florida first reported on June 21. That chairman, Brevard attorney Alan Landman, said the governor’s aides ordered him to place Seminole County General Magistrate Tesha Ballou on the short list for the vacancy, the publication reported. DeSantis placed her on the Circuit Court in early June.

Jason Unger, who sits on the Supreme Court JNC, told the Florida Phoenix the governor’s office did nothing wrong.

“I’ve gotten those calls from governors’ staff before when there are specific names that a governor wanted. I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but certainly there’s nothing improper or unusual about that at all,” Unger said.

“Any governor, they travel the state, they have lawyers they know, lawyers they respect. Same with judges. If the governor has a name, or his staff knows of someone who’s applied that they think is a really talented lawyer who’d be an exceptional judge, they have every right to suggest. They don’t have the ability to require anything, but certainly they have the right and I’d say even the duty to let the JNC know there’s someone on the list that they think very highly of,” he said.

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2019/07/02/the-changing-judiciary-gov-desantis-appoints-the-people-wholl-help-him-shape-floridas-courts/?utm_source=Florida+Phoenix&utm_campaign=a086b40aba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_02_09_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_492fc70e72-a086b40aba-87732589

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