TAMPA, Fla — ABC Action News continues our conversation with Florida's Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, as his office oversees Florida's fractured insurance market. As part of a month-long series, we are taking your questions, concerns and stories directly to state leaders. The topic of this week's conversation is the 8 new companies now entering the Florida insurance market. Below are questions submitted questions we took directly to CFO Patronis. Watch to see his answers.
QUESTION 1: "I keep hearing the state is doing things to help homeowners and they have gotten some new carriers in the state, but again, they are no-name carriers, companies that you have never heard of. They seem to be offshoots of bankrupt carriers and carriers who have left the state." - Ira Kasdan, Bradenton
PATRONIS: "The State of Florida would not allow a bankrupt carrier. He's gotten some bad information. It's easy to be sitting at the coffee shop and get bad information. But the State of Florida, the way the laws are written, if you have bankrupted a carrier, you can't be a part of a carrier. If you are exec from a bad carrier, you can't be an exec for a new carrier."
QUESTION 2: How legitimate are these new companies or can these new companies pay out of a claim if a storm hits?
PATRONIS: "They are not allowed to do business in the State of Florida unless they are capable of doing it's job. So they got to be funded. Every year we have raised the fiscal amount of holdback they got to have as cash on hand, inflation is going up, everything costs more. Guys, we are going to have to have more money in the bank.
QUESTION 3: "I just don't feel like there's an end in sight. I look at all the legislature stuff going through. And I feel like it's just all talk at this point. Because of some of those carriers I've watched your segment on the carrier, and I went up and looked and researched some of them. And there's maybe out of both those carriers there's one carrier that's actually grading policies in Florida, and I don't even think for writing condo policies."
PATRONIS: "So they're brand-new companies that are taking liability off the shelf from citizens. Okay. So, they're bringing down citizens' liability. That's the insurance company that are all over the state.
NADEEN: "They are only taking Citizens policies, these new companies..."
PATRONIS: " So they're only taking citizens but now those carriers are brand new... so now they go to get relationships with agents around the state. So again, not every agent can sell every particular carriers' product. So I tell people all the time, your agent is your best hunting guide to getting solutions."
