The Personal Insurance Federation of Florida (PIFF) today released its 2018 legislative priorities, which address the most critical issues facing the property and casualty personal lines markets in Florida. This list, which will be released annually immediately before the start of the legislative session, includes recommended law changes designed to fix problems in the consumer insurance markets, and identifies issues that PIFF members believe are detrimental to the health of these markets.
“Our overriding goal as a trade is to advocate for a healthy, competitive market for insurance products to the benefit of all Floridians,” stated Michael Carlson, president of PIFF, which recently welcomed Farmers Insurance to its membership. “In 2018, we believe the key priority should be to meaningfully address assignment of benefits (AOB) reform in a way that reduces fraud and abuse, and thereby reduces costs.”
2018 PIFF priorities include:
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Eliminating the AOB cost driver, which is the cause for homeowners’ premium increases in Florida, by addressing the “one-way” attorney fee law to eliminate claims abuse and unnecessary litigation;
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Thoughtfully addressing the costs of any repeal of the Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law, and including reasonable reforms to Florida’s third-party “bad faith” law as part of any repeal;
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Restoring fairness to the law by fixing Florida’s unfair “bad faith” laws to require third-party claimants to comply with the law that applies to first-party claimants;
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Preserving a proven, transparent, and performance-based premium tax credit which has created high wage jobs in Florida; and
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Maintaining Florida law that governs when prejudgment interest may be awarded to claimants in negligence actions, which will avoid unnecessary cost increases.
“We look forward to engaging with our allies and partners in the legislature to promote positive policy outcomes in the coming year that will truly benefit consumers,” Carlson added.
