Florida Legislature Passes Major Changes to Auto, Property Insurance Markets
The actions follow weeks of back-and-forth debate on the proposals between the House and Senate chambers.
Stakeholders say neither of the potential new laws will do enough to accomplish lawmakers’ goals of reducing rates or weeding out fraud in their respective insurance industries. Both bills are now headed to Governor Ron DeSantis, who will have to sign them before they can become law.
The bill attempts to address some of the issues plaguing the state’s homeowners insurance market in which insurers lost more than $1.5 billion in last year. It passed Friday in the Senate by a vote of 35 to 5 and 75 to 41 in the House.
Scott Matiyow, Michael Carlson: Auto insurance bills will create even bigger problems for motorists
The Legislature needs to hit the brakes on PIP repeal.
The solution in the fight against the problem of insurance fraud in Florida cannot be creating an even bigger problem.
The Florida Legislature is speeding toward repeal of Florida’s motor vehicle no-fault law and its personal injury protection (PIP) insurance requirement. Bills filed in the Senate and House would replace PIP with mandatory bodily injury coverage; the Senate bill goes one step further and mandates a PIP-like medical payments coverage.
On this course, rates will rise for Florida motorists, particularly those who buy the minimum required insurance and those who buy bodily injury coverage at amounts below what the proposed law requires. These drivers can least afford an increase, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of additional Floridians will drive illegally without insurance because of this increase
Officials with an insurance trade association write that Florida's attempts to fix auto insurance fraud will create new problems in the form of higher rates for motorists.
Sunburn â The morning read of whatâs hot in Florida politics â 4.20.21
Good Tuesday morning.
Breaking overnight â â
Gov. DeSantis signs online sales tax planâ via Renzo Downey of Florida Politics â DeSantis has signed the online sales tax bill into law, answering the question of whether he would act on the bill or let it roll into law without his John Hancock. An estimated $1 billion in revenue would come from the new enforcement of sales taxes technically already owed on purchases Floridians make from out-of-state sellers, but which few Floridians pay. DeSantis had until midnight to sign or veto the bill into law or else it would have gone into effect without his signature. Lawmakers sent him the bill on April 12. He waited until one hour left in the day Monday to send the alert that he had signed the measure. DeSantis never signaled his support for the plan. If anything, he voiced his opposition.
Florida Drives Toward Repeal of Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law insurancejournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insurancejournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.