Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 7 expands direct primary care and is a priority bill of the House. By expanding direct primary care to more specialized medical services, the bill meets Speaker Oliva’s goal of increasing health care options to Floridians in order to reduce health care costs. The House Health & Human…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 759 and HB 761 revamp Florida’s trade secret protection laws. They passed their second committee on March 14, 2019 without amendment. The bills are now in its last House committee. The Senate companion bills (SB 1414 and SB 1416) are similar and have not yet been heard in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Committees in the House and Senate approved each chamber’s insurance omnibus bill during meetings this week. The Senate advanced their insurance omnibus bill (SB 714) on March 11, 2019 after amending it. Two days later, the House advanced their bill (HB 301) after amending the civil remedy notice…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel With the bill sponsoring citing privacy concerns, the House moved its genetic testing prohibition bill (HB 879) out of its first committee on March 13, 2019 with a vote of 11-3. The dissenting votes were from three of the five Democrats on the committee. The Senate version (SB 258)…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A rule proposed by the Division of Workers’ Compensation (Division) to implement last year’s legislation authorizing first responders to receive workers’ compensation benefits for PTSD without a physical injury will be ratified if HB 983 becomes law. The rule specifies the types of third party injuries that qualify as…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 935 dealing with price transparency in health care contracts with providers is a priority of the House for the 2019 Session and is moving quickly through committee. A recent trend in the Florida Legislature is to enact legislation for more price transparency in health care. Last Session, the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Business groups and the trial bar are sparring over a bill about Florida’s dangerous instrumentality law. Part of the bill will shield companies that lease certain mobile equipment from liability for damages caused by the equipment if the lessee has insurance in the required amounts. The impetus for HB…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee adopted a committee substitute for the vulnerable investor bill during its meeting on March 13, 2019. The committee substitute replaces the originally filed version of the bill. Some in the life insurance community are following this bill closely due to the employee training…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 322 by Sen. Simpson (R) related to health insurance preexisting conditions passed the Rules Committee on March 13, 2019. It was not amended and will now be heard on the floor. The bill generally requires health insurers and HMOs to offer at least one comprehensive major medical policy…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 1113 creates a voluntary health shared savings incentive program to allow health insurers and HMOs to provide cash or other incentives to insureds when they obtain shoppable health care services on the insurer’s or HMO’s shared savings incentive list. The shoppable services are those that are non-emergency, including…