Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty discussed the Office of Insurance Regulation's (OIR) Report on Review of the 2010 Sinkhole Data Call at the Cabinet meeting today in Tallahassee.
The report is the result of a data call in August by the OIR to the commercial and residential property insurance industry. Requested information, which focused on Florida sinkhole claims opened between 2006 and 2010, sought the following data points:
|- The types of claims being filed
- Testing procedures to determine claim legitimacy
- Costs of inspections
- Geographic location of claims
- Legal fees and public adjuster fees
- Amount of structural loss
The report states that, "Total sinkhole costs over the sample period amounted to approximately $1.4 billion and increased from $209 million in 2006 to $406 million in 2009. The largest share of the total expense over the sample period was for the Structure Loss (54%). It was followed by Land Loss (27 percent) and Engineering Expense (12 percent)."It further reveals that in 2006, "The total of expenses paid for closed sinkhole claims amounted to $28,347,486 and the total indemnity paid in 2006 was $163,876,153. In contrast, for the year 2009, the total of expenses paid on closed claims spiked to $41,870,403 while the total indemnity paid had increased to $220,270,928. The aggregate total of expenses during the period 2006-2010 is $161,972,893, while the aggregate of total indemnity paid is $907,147,000 during the same period."The data shows a concentration of sinkholes in specific areas. Over 88 percent of the reported claims occurred in 13 of Florida's 67 counties: Hernando, Pasco, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Marion, Polk, Orange, Citrus, Alachua, Volusia, Broward, Seminole, and Miami-Dade. Also, Miami-Dade and Broward counties represented 2.9 percent of total claims from 2006-2009. However, data submitted for 2010 thus far shows that the proportion of total claims represented by claims from these two counties has increased to 4.2 percent. (Related stories: Dealing With That Sinking Feeling, New Florida Law Covers Sinkholes
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.