Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Sam Miller, FIC Consultant HB 579 Payment of Health Care Claims — by HagerAmendment by Hager [PDF] An important House panel, the Health Innovation Subcommittee, on March 27 voted to ban retroactive denial of health insurance claims once authorization is given to doctors, despite warnings from the Florida Insurance Council that responsible policyholders…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The bill dealing with collection of assessments for long term care insurance due to the Penn Treaty insolvency passed its first committee on March 27, 2017. The House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee passed the proposed committee substitute (PCS) for HB 1273 that was released on Thursday, March 23,…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel With the bill sponsor saying she would consider bad faith reform in her PIP repeal bill but only if a rate rollback was also included, the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee passed the proposed committee substitute for HB 1063 with a technical amendment. The Subcommittee spent over an hour…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Currently, preinsurance motor vehicle inspections are only required in seven counties in Florida. A recent study of the preinsurance inspection program by the Department of Financial Services (DFS) found the program cost insurers over $12M and reduced premiums for policyholders only by $35,640, a bad return on investment for…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 1029 relates to the merchandise gifts insurers are allowed to give to insureds, prospective insureds, or others for advertising. Under current law, insurers or agents can offer and make gifts of merchandise up to $25 per gift for advertising purposes without violating the unfair trade practices act. …
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A bill, HB 617, requiring pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) to obtain a certificate of authority (COA) from the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) to operate as a third party administrator and to require quarterly audits of each PBM regarding updates to maximum allowable cost (MAC) pricing information passed its…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SIU personnel from several insurers worked with the Division of Investigative and Forensic Services (DIFS) within the Department of Financial Services (DFS) to write this year’s fraud bill, HB 1007. The bill makes numerous changes to insurer SIU practices and fraud reporting – including more frequent and additional…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On March 27, 2017, the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee approved a proposed committee substitute (PCS) for an omnibus adjuster licensing and regulation bill, HB 911. The proposed committee substitute replaces the originally filed version of the bill and was not amended. The bill is primarily supported by the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On March 23, 2017, the House passed the bill to overhaul the state group health insurance program primarily along party lines, with the Democrats voting against the bill. Overhaul of the state group health insurance program in this manner has been a priority of Speaker Corcoran’s for the past…
Federal Legislation Update: There are two proposals at the federal level that may be included in upcoming corporate tax reform plans that would have a disastrous impact on the insurance industry for our state:The first proposal, expected to be reintroduced by US Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), would deny tax deductions for certain reinsurance premiums paid…