Anyone following the roofing problem in FLA??
https://floridapolitics.com/archives...ves-have-nots/
Quote:
Add in fast population growth in Florida, high demand for high-risk areas such as coastal communities, higher prices for construction and labor, and alleged abuse by contractors who lure policyholders to file inflated damage claims, and you have what one prominent insurance executive calls “total collapse of the overall Florida marketplace.”
The actuarially sound way to respond to the new normal is to raise rates, reduce coverage, or throw in the towel, as eight property insurance companies in Florida have done since 2018. Just this week, three others asked state insurance regulators to approve hefty rate increases — as high as 49 percent on policyholders not among the tens of thousands who recently lost coverage altogether due to non-renewals.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...cane-rcna29649
Here's how the scam works....
Quote:
The crisis is largely the result of a plague of roofing scams, fed by loopholes in state law and a string of court decisions that allowed them to proliferate, insurers and government officials say.
The scam works like this: Contractors knock on doors offering to inspect homeowners’ roofs for storm damage. They say they can help get a roof replacement covered by insurance, and they persuade the homeowners to sign away their rights to file the claims themselves. The contractors then file fraudulent damage claims, and when the insurance companies balk, the contractors sue. The insurance companies usually settle the disputed claims for many times more than the original claim. Most of that money goes to the contractors’ lawyers in the form of a “contingency fee multiplier.” Some lawyers file hundreds of such lawsuits a year.
The homeowner may get a free roof, but everyone pays for it through increased rates.
“Ultimately, the victim is every Floridian who is buying their neighbors’ roofs,” said state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg who has criticized the state Legislature for not acting faster.
Andre Hall found himself in the middle of a scam in December, after roofers showed up at his home in St. Johns offering to inspect his roof for damage. They said they found some, and got him to sign a document that he didn’t understand — which he later learned required his insurance company to pay the roofers. But Hall is pushing back, trying to prevent the roofers from coming on his property, a stand he said he is making on principle.
“They strong-arm you into using them. And they strong-arm the insurance company,” Hall, 56, said.
In the state Legislature, attempts to reform litigation practices pit the insurance industry against trial lawyers, another politically powerful group. The Florida Justice Association, which represents trial lawyers, says the insurance companies’ claims about fraud and frivolous lawsuits are overblown, and that the companies are to blame for poor financial management. The group accuses the companies of using the issue to erode consumers’ rights to pursue legitimate claims, and regulators of poor oversight of insurers.
Thinking there's not to many bright people in FLA when in a few more years many of the homes are sloly sinking into the sea. Climate change?????
