A sensational newspaper article alleging bad deeds by Florida insurance companies is prompting the Florida House of Representatives to look into the relationship between companies and their Managing General Agents (MGAs) and affiliated companies. The Tampa Bay Times reported the companies diverted billions of dollars to affiliates while claiming to lose money from hurricanes, based on the newspaper’s reading of a regulator’s draft report.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller reveals the inadequacies of the article and its misleading and incomplete portrayal of the market and regulation. She’s joined by a veteran Florida insurance agent who explains how MGAs and affiliates function, the financial dynamics of the insurance market, and the consumer safeguards built into the system.

Show Notes (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-56-florida-property-insurance-facts-vs-fear/ )

Allen McGinniss is a licensed Florida insurance agent and the principal of the McGinniss Himmel Insurance Agency, based in Tallahassee, Florida. He began his insurance career 20 years ago as a State Farm agent before transitioning to an independent agent and co-founding his agency in 2015. He explained what Managing General Agents (MGAs) are and the crucial role in the insurance industry by performing essential administrative tasks for insurance companies. These tasks include:

• Underwriting: Assessing and evaluating risks to determine appropriate coverage and premiums.
• Claims Management: Handling the process of claims from filing to settlement.
• Policy Issuance: Managing the issuance and renewal of insurance policies.

Why Are MGAs Important?

MGAs help streamline operations by providing specialized knowledge and services that insurance companies may not handle internally. McGinniss said they can either operate within an insurance company or function independently. This flexibility allows insurance companies to:

• Respond Quickly to Market Changes: MGAs enable companies to adapt to evolving market conditions efficiently.
• Manage Claims Effectively: By leveraging the expertise of MGAs, insurance companies can ensure that claims are processed promptly and fairly.

The Tampa Bay Times Article

The Tampa Bay Times published an article on February 22, 2025 titled Florida insurance companies steered money to investors while claiming losses, study says. Its reporting was based on a draft of a 2022 consultant’s study for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) for the time period of 2017-2019. According to the article, “While Florida insurers claimed to be losing money in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Michael, their parent companies and affiliates were making billions of dollars.” It reported that the previously unreleased study’s summary “reveals that as the industry was ailing and companies were losing money, executives distributed $680 million in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliate companies,” which included MGAs.

McGinniss argued that the... (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-56-florida-property-insurance-facts-vs-fear/ )

One of the elements credited in the evolving success of Florida’s recent property insurance reforms is data collection and reporting. Property insurance companies are required to provide regulators with specific data on litigated claims. The number of lawsuits decreased significantly in 2024 as a result and with it, upward pressure on homeowners insurance rates.

Now there’s a push to implement a litigation data standard nationwide. Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sits down with CaseGlide CEO Wesley Todd who is behind the move, citing increasing nuclear verdicts and new challenges in other lines impacting insurance availability and affordability.

Show Notes

The podcast delves into the transformative changes in Florida's homeowners insurance litigation landscape, driven by legislative reforms and the critical role of data transparency. Wesley Todd said he formed Tampa-based CaseGlide in 2013 to bring greater transparency to insurance litigation through data analytics and “level the scales of justice. But what was missing was the ability to see what was happening, the ability to do something about it.” More than ten years later, he is continuing to emphasize the importance of data transparency in understanding litigation trends and improving the insurance industry's efficiency.

Todd told host Miller that the insurance industry today faces “an inflection point.” Nuclear verdicts, social inflation, and judicial activism have driven unprecedented litigation costs, destabilizing insurance companies’ ability to fulfill their fiduciary obligations. Meanwhile, plaintiff attorneys have transformed their practices with analytics, funding, and transparency, positioning themselves to maximize litigation outcomes “at the expense of insurers,” he said.

"I'm really sort of just giving the industry a heads-up that this is where we're headed if we're lucky, right? I mean otherwise it could be too late. It could be that insurance becomes unaffordable and unavailable in major lines like casualty, professional liability, just like we see in commercial auto, just like we saw temporarily in Florida," Todd said.

Todd discussed his recent policy paper that advocates for a data-driven approach to decision-making and highlights the need for standardized litigation data to support industry reforms and better serve consumers. He is urging insurance companies across the U.S. to implement a “Litigation Data Standard.” He describes it as a governance framework for collecting, auditing, and analyzing litigation data. This “institutional reform” would help realign insurance companies with their duties of compliance, reasonableness, and transparency, enabling them to meet regulatory expectations, counter judicial activism, and deliver legal services of comparable quality to their opponents in the plaintiff bar.

Todd’s concept is based on Florida’s litigation challenges. In 2021, Florida accounted for 7% of the nation’s homeowners insurance claims, yet 76% of the nation’s homeowners insurance lawsuits. The legislature passed a series of successive reforms from 2019 through 2023, including the elimination of one-way attorney fees for plaintiff attorneys to help fix the problem. (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/litigation-data-standard/)

Amid accusations that Florida’s property insurance companies, including state-backed Citizens Insurance, are deliberately paying only half their claims and “in a state of collapse,” comes new insight and fresh data that debunk the charges. The man behind the allegations is Martin Weiss of Weiss Ratings, who’s now the subject of an investigation by state insurance regulators.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller shares the new push-back from Citizens’ President & CEO on these accusations and sits down with the head of a large private insurance company who shares new data showing why these charges are inaccurate and unfair in what is a tightly-regulated marketplace.

Show Notes (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-54-the-truth-behind-the-50-claims-denial/
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The news stories emerged mere weeks after two devastating hurricanes – Helene and Milton – struck Florida, creating $5.3 billion in estimated insured losses in Florida as of late November 2024. Host Miller dives deep into the controversies and complexities surrounding the state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and the broader Florida property insurance market on its claims handling and claims payment rates.

"The innuendo that's going around in the media space is that there is a suspicion that Citizens is trying to cheat its customers, and now forces are trying to extend that innuendo to Florida's private property insurance market companies,” said Miller. “In my opinion, that's just plain dishonest and unfair."

The program features soundbites from Weiss, Citizens Property Insurance President & CEO Tim Cerio, and a studio interview with Locke Burt, CEO and Chairman of Security First Insurance Company. Burt served in the Florida Senate for 12 years, where he helped write the laws that created Citizens and the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.

Weiss, in various November media reports, said that he’d reviewed Citizens Property Insurance 2023 annual financial statement and concluded that Citizens didn’t pay 50.4% of its 2023 claims. He said that was worse than any private insurance company’s no-pay rate. Weiss declined an invitation to appear on the podcast.

Burt and Cerio defended Citizens and the broader Florida insurance market against Weiss’ accusations, noting there are legitimate reasons claims are closed without payment. It's not always about denial. The reasons include:

• Claims that fall below the policyholder's deductible.
• Duplicate claims.
• Claims related to flood damage, which are not covered by standard homeowners' policies.

Weiss, in his criticism of Citizens, was quoted in the media as saying “One factor that we believe is probably playing a role is a deliberate strategy to reduce their liabilities for whatever reason.”

Cerio shot back at the December 4, 2024 Citizens Board of Governors meeting. “It's critical to just point out that, we are the state created, not for profit, insurer of last resort. We have no financial incentive to not play claims. Zero,” he said.

(For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-54-the-truth-behind-the-50-claims-denial/
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