Rising property insurance rates is the No. 1 complaint State Sen. Don Gaetz heard on the campaign trail last year. Gaetz is in the business of fighting for his constituents, and he has partnered with State Rep. Alex Andrade to tackle the rising costs, improve the claims process and increase rate transparency.
Earlier this month, Gaetz and Andrade introduced Senate Bill 554 and House Bill 451. The proposed legislation calls for property insurance companies to speed up payments to businesses and families that suffer losses, streamline the adjustment process to eliminate delays and reach fair settlements, reveal their financials if they ask for rate increases and require both sides to pay attorney fees during the claims process.
In the Feb. 20 issue of Inweekly, we discuss the bill. Read more.
BACKGROUND: Senate President Ben Albritton wants to hold the insurance industry accountable.
“Floridians have been paying faithfully their insurance premiums for years, sometimes decades, and now they expect their insurance company to keep up its end of the bargain,” Albritton said when he began his two-year term as Florida Senate president in November. “I want to make sure that impacted Floridians and insurance companies hear me loudly and clearly — we are watching. We’ve made changes that insurance companies said they needed to improve competition and stabilize rates. And we’ve enacted pro-consumer transparency to protect homeowners. The proof will be in the results. I’m not going to sit idly by if legitimate claims get denied while rates continue to rise. Period.”
When he won the election in November, Sen. Don Gaetz discussed that Republicans needed to take on issues like property insurance.
“Republicans have to understand now that at the federal level, at the state level, with significant majorities in both houses of the legislature, with the governor’s office, and with the agency heads appointed by the governor, there’s nobody to point at. There’s nobody to blame,” he said. “We, as Republicans, have to take ownership now of the critical kitchen table issues that affect ordinary working-class, middle-class Floridians every day. And we’ve got to take action.”
Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash
