The Back Alley Archives

I'd post it in the politics forum, but I think we can all agree on this one.

TALLAHASSEE — When the president of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. learned that his chief financial officer had used corporate funds to finance a luxurious weekend at a $633-a-night resort in Bermuda, he initially described the expenses as "absolutely appropriate."

But president Barry Gilway changed his tune after a Times/Herald story and a subsequent inspector general's report documented evidence that executives regularly ran up huge expenses on the company credit card, traveling and dining at four-star locations across the globe.

"As guardians of public funds, we must hold ourselves to a more rigorous standard," he said.

It was a full-throated mea culpa, following sharp rebukes from Gov. Rick Scott, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and top lawmakers. But behind the scenes, Gilway was quietly handing out huge salary increases for the well-traveled CFO, Sharon Binnun, and several other executives who run the state-backed company.

As news stories were documenting her $35,000 tour through four-star hotels in four countries, Binnun was enjoying a $31,000 pay hike, boosting her salary 14 percent to $255,000.

Several other top officials got pay hikes of more than $25,000 late last year as well, even as the company's executive suite was enmeshed in a series of corporate scandals and questionable spending. Citizens says the raises were justified due to increased responsibility and "parity" with the private market

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/b ... es/1275606

a1bion wrote:I'd post it in the politics forum, but I think we can all agree on this one.



http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/b ... es/1275606

The internal investigators who flagged the large severance packages and the altered documents were fired shortly after filing their report.

I may or may not be closely related to one of these people.

Bunch of dicks.

Man, insurance in this state is fucked up.

Agreed. I didn't work for Citizens, but for one of those "small" insurance companies in FL, that had like 0.5% or so of the market share.

One guy's home in Miami, FL with 2800 square feet and a dwelling coverage of $350,000 or so had an annual premium of $11000.

Rock, so as an "industry insider," do you have any insight as to why it's so hard to get decent insurance here?

[quote=DocZaius]Rock, so as an "industry insider," do you have any insight as to why it's so hard to get decent insurance here?[/QUOTE]

Because, like pawn shops, they are organized thieves.

1. Corporate America just like the government both suck.

2. There's hurricanes and sinkholes in FL, more so than other states.

3. There is a lot of fraud in South Florida, especially Palm Beach County, Broward County, and Miami-Dade County.

"Public Adjusters" are not making things that much better either; while they get better settlements for their select clients, insurance companies collectively raise premiums on the rest of us who have few or little claims.

My solution - make every homeowners policy customizable. e.g a basic fire policy with more things added on.

We haven't been hit by a hurricane in years. And rock, what type of insurance fraud are you referring to specifically in South Florida? I know there's a lot of issues with staged accidents, because it started showing up in the Tampa area a few years ago. A few years ago, I remember the cops doing a press conference about how they were cracking down on it. But that's auto insurance.

There's all kinds of property insurance scams down here, too. People intentionally drop heavy things on their kitchen tile so they can get a whole new floor, for example.

Public adjusters tend to inflate their estimates because they get paid by contingency (or at least they did a couple of years ago - I think they were trying to pass a law to reign in that kind of thing).

They just passed a new revision to PIP to combat fraud.

[quote=DocZaius]There's all kinds of property insurance scams down here, too. People intentionally drop heavy things on their kitchen tile so they can get a whole new floor, for example.

Public adjusters tend to inflate their estimates because they get paid by contingency (or at least they did a couple of years ago - I think they were trying to pass a law to reign in that kind of thing).

They just passed a new revision to PIP to combat fraud.[/QUOTE]

Yo - please see the "Yo DocZ" thread, Doc.

Types of fraud in homeowners policies:

In general, contractors will say anything is caused by a covered loss (instead of "wear and tear") so that it's money in their pockets.

1. Lightning claims. People pad things, when they know insurance companies won't diagnose each item; maybe only 1 big TV was damaged, but add in several small ones, some alarm clocks, etc. I have had roughly 20 customers call in and claim that lightning struck the AC condenser unit/heat pump - how many were actually struck based on engineer reports? NONE. I think the industry average is around 0.5% - meaning only that percent of all lightning claims involving AC units are actual lightning strikes.

2. Theft claims. People claim more is stolen than there actually is. People can't be expected to have receipts for everything, and claims cannot be denied for that reason alone. I had a case where a person claimed squatters broke into his home and stole a lot of things; through an investigation, it was later determined that he had pawned the items at the pawn shop down the street, and wanted to "double collect" by filing a claim.

3. Tile claims. There's a crack on the floor, and people claim that it was a result of a "dropped object," and therefore the entire floor needs to be re-tiled.

4. Personal liability/injury claims. e.g. a "slip and fall" accident that takes place inside a home, involving 2 friends. Definitely expect collusion there.

Doing this line of work makes a person very jaded; I constantly did/do have a "guilty AFTER proven innocent" mentality.