Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 27, the House professional license deregulation package, was approved by its last committee of reference on April 4, 2019 with five amendments. Only one of the amendments related to the Florida Building Commission membership and is described below. The bill contains many changes to deregulate professions overseen…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On April 3, 2019, the House moved its life insurance genetic testing prohibition bill (HB 879) by a vote of 10-7. This was the last committee stop for the bill which now will be heard on the House floor when set by the Rules Committee. The vote on the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On April 3, 2019, the House moved their bill creating a voluntary health shared savings incentive program to the floor when it cleared its last committee. The Senate bill is also moving this year and is in its last committee. Thus, the shared savings bills are getting into position…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A large condominium association bill contains an insurance provision that may interest property insurers. The provision prohibits a condo owner’s insurance policy from having rights of subrogation against the condominium association. HB 1075 passed its second committee on April 3, 2019 with three amendments that did not affect the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A bill dealing with referrals from health care providers to hospitals and out of network providers passed its last committee on April 3, 2019. The only amendment to the bill changed the effective date of it. HB 863 prohibits health care providers from referring patients to any hospital in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle agency package (HB 1053) has some changes to crash reports obtained from the agency that may be of interest to auto insurers. The bill passed its second committee on April 2, 2019 and is now in its last committee. …
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Bills to expand the application of Florida’s one way attorney fee statute to suits brought by “contractors” against surety insurers under payment or performance bonds for losses due to breach of a building or construction contract are moving through the legislature this year. SB 1200 and HB 1247 are…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The 10% per year rate increase limit that applies to all policyholders of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens) will be reduced to 5% for the next two years for policyholders in Monroe County which includes the Florida Keys. The bill reducing the glidepath was approved on April 2, 2019…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 337 by Rep. Leek (R) increases the jurisdictional threshold for county court, along with other changes to the court system. It passed its second House committee on April 2, 2019. It was not amended. The bill has one committee left. The Senate county court jurisdiction bill…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Department of Financial Services (DFS) agency package passed another committee this week. HB 1393 passed its second House committee on April 1, 2019 with one amendment to remove a change related to unclaimed property that had a negative fiscal impact. The bill has one committee left.…