Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 529 increases the FIGA coverage limit and the FIGA emergency assessment maximum for condominium association and homeowners’ association FIGA claims. It passed its last House committee on February 20, 2020 without amendment. The bill will be heard on the floor next when set by the Rules Committee. Upon…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House is continuing to move their accuracy in damages bill even though the bill is stalled in the Senate. The bill specifies the evidence juries hear for the value of past, present, or future medical expenses used to set damages in personal injury lawsuits. The House bill…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 540, dealing with FIGA and FWCIGA, was heard for the first time on the Senate floor on February 19, 2020 and rolled to third reading. The Senate should vote on the bill during its next floor Session which is next Wednesday. The bill is supported by FIGA and…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1828, a bill designed to put requirements on litigation financing to protect consumers, but not to outright ban litigation financing, was effectively killed by the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on February 19, 2020 when the Committee ran out of meeting time before voting on the bill. The…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate peer to peer car sharing bill (SB 478) stalled this week when the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee postponed the bill for the second week in a row. The Committee is not set to meet again which makes passage of the bill very difficult this year. The…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A bill providing more flexibility on who pays taxes on trust investments moved closer to passage this week. The bill allows an independent trustee of any grantor trust to reimburse the grantor for all or part of the income taxes paid by the grantor as a result of the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Only genetic information that is a medical diagnosis would be allowed to be used by life insurers under the Senate genetic testing bill (SB 1564) that sailed through its last Senate committee on February 20, 2020. The bill passed with a vote of 16-1. The bill will now be…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 744 expands the current law on direct primary care agreements by allowing podiatrists to enter into these agreements with individuals. Current law only allows allopathic physicians, osteopathic physicians, chiropractic physicians, nurses, or dentists to use direct primary care agreements. The bill also changes other regulations for podiatrists,…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House moved their PBM regulation bill (HB 7045) to the floor on February 18, 2020 when it passed its last committee, House Health and Human Services. A strike all amendment and two amendments to the strike all were adopted to the bill. The strike all amendment:…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1188 and HB 1409 create a public records exemption for certain sensitive business information held by the Department of Financial Services (DFS) which current law already protects from public records disclosure requirements if held by the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR). Disclosure of the exempted information, which includes…