Florida voters and policyholders should be outraged with Florida insurance regulators and politicians approving insurance policies that are not true replacement cost policies. The current pending legislation and recent regulatory actions found a sharp consumer backlash in a video story, Insurers Sending Letters To Replace Your Roof Or Lose Your Coverage, above and as quoted below:
Make sure to check your mailbox, your insurance company may have a costly surprise for you.
Some Tampa Bay homeowners are receiving letters from their insurance companies requiring them to replace aging roofs or lose their coverage.
‘I can’t afford to replace my roof,’ said Wilma Bryant, who now has until March 7 to get a new roof. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with it.’
She isn’t alone, her roof is 20-years-old, which triggered her particular insurance company to require a new roof, even though Bryant says she never filed a claim and has no problems with her roof.
Other homeowners say their roofs are 12 to 15 years old and have plenty of life left, but their insurance companies still want the roof replaced.
As more homeowners receive these roof letters from their insurance companies, a panic is setting in, as many can’t afford to put on a new roof immediately, especially in the middle of a pandemic.
‘At least they should come out and take a look at it before they make a judgment call,’ said John Ellis of Seminole. ‘That just seems so unfair just to go by the age.’
As shocking as this is to some homeowners, Better Call Behnken found this is the just the beginning of what could come.
What is worse is that the current regulations and proposed law by the Florida Senate would violate homeowner mortgage requirements because mortgages require full replacement cost policies. If the banks and mortgage servicing companies follow federal law, policyholders will also face forced-place insurance premiums to make up for the “Swiss cheese” insurance that insurance lobbyists and the Florida insurance industry are pushing on our Florida regulators and politicians. Our regulators should know better, but our legislators need to be warned that Senate Bill 76 should be DOA because it is the most anti-consumer insurance legislation proffered in over a decade. People will be forced to rebuild roofs that do not need to be replaced, their premiums will go up, they will face having to pay for forced place insurance policies, and they will lose the ability to be fully compensated when insurance companies delay and deny claims.
Thought For The Day
I want to be the kind of elected official who not only pays attention but who acts on behalf of people – just average people. Fancy lobbyists get to tell their story, but the average person doesn’t.
—Maxine Waters
