Hurricane Ian Update Email #1 - AssuredPartners

To All Our Managers: I hope you all are well. Unfortunately we are looking at a hurricane landfall somewhere in Florida later this week with Hurricane Ian. We are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. In order to help you all get through this storm please refer to the “storm prep” bullets below. A list of helpful FAQs and websites have also been provided. Should you have any questions or any concerns about your respective associations please reach out to me, Negar or a member of our team for assistance. We will be working through the Storm and have contingencies in place should power be lost. So rest assured that your AssuredPartners team will be here for you and ready…

Property Claim Reporting Process: Due to the high volume of claims and uncertainty in everyone’s connectivity we encourage all of our clients to file their claims directly with their respective property & flood insurance companies. I have attached a list of property & flood carriers that illustrates the phone, email and fax to report claims to. We ask that you cc our dedicated claims address of ap.lm.claims@assuredpartners.com so we can be in the loop. If you need to physically speak with us there is a good chance our local team in Orlando may temporarily lose connectivity. Our claims coordinator, Christie Lawrence is located outside of the path of the storm so she is our backup if we go down. If you need us for anything please try us directly first and if you cannot get through Christie will be available at 407-777-4478 or at Christie.Lawrence@assuredpartners.com

Claim Reporting Time Line & Emergency Services Heads Up: It is imperative that you all have individual plans in place for your communities on how you are going to get emergency restoration services, equipment, etc… immediately following the storm. It maybe several days or weeks before an actual adjuster is able to get on your property IMPORTANT: You do NOT have to wait for your insurance carrier adjuster to start emergency restoration work. In fact it is required by the carrier to start the work ASAP. You do NOT need to wait to report your claim or have your adjuster walk the property. You can start immediately with your tarping, boarding up, water extraction, etc…

Contractors Tip: If you have trouble finding qualified, reputable, licensed & insured contractors to do your emergency restoration work I recommend you ask your insurance carrier when reporting the claim. They have approved vendors that can help you. Our team also has a list of emergency restoration folks we can share if needed.

Hurricane Claim Filing Tip: In order to help you gather and track your claims expenses we created the a claim data collection spreadsheet. Our recommendation is to include every expense paid for the hurricanes on this sheet including the invoice number, description of the work performed, the property address or building number the work took place, who did the work, date the work was done and the cost of the work performed. This will help your adjuster tremendously while working through your claim and will help get your claim settled faster. The better your records the easier the claim process. CLICK HERE - Claim Data Collection Spreadsheet

What to Do After The Storm: Assuming the property is not a total loss the property policy requires the insured to protect the undamaged portions of the buildings from further damage and start emergency remediation services as soon as it is safe and practical. Again, do NOT wait to hear from an adjuster before starting this work. Keep invoices & records for reimbursement later. Always helps to have BEFORE pictures of the property and then pictures AFTER (prior to doing any remediation work). The pictures or videos will help tremendously during the claim process. Once the building is secure and emergency restoration work has been done you are encouraged to communicate with the association’s insurance adjuster before making FINAL repairs to the building.

Assignment of Benefits WARNING: We strongly recommend that your Association NOT sign an Assignment of Benefits with any contractors that come out to service your property. A restoration vendor should NOT require this to be signed to do work. We recommend having both your attorney and our team review any contracts before signing. If you sign them you could be giving the rights to your association’s insurance claim to a 3^rd party contractor. This can create significant issues down the line.

State of Emergency – 718 Condo Statute: Included here is a link to the part of the 718 statute that discusses what expanded powers a condo board of directors has during a State of Emergency. The Governor has already declared a State of Emergency in all 67 Florida Counties so these items are in play. We encourage you to review this information as it contains informative material. CLICK HERE - Florida Statute 718.1265 - Association Emergency Powers

Commonly Asked Hurricane Questions: Here are some of the more common questions we received post Irma. Please review below as it may save you an email or phone call down the line…

Hurricane Deductible: What is my hurricane deductible and how does it work? Hurricane deductibles are different than those deductibles for lightening, pipe burst, fires, etc. The two biggest differences are

Deductible Size ($): The hurricane deductibles are much larger and often apply per building. For example, if you had a fire in building A, the deductible for that fire is likely $5k on your property policy. If that same building is damaged by a hurricane the deductible is likely a % of the value you are insuring that specific building for. Most named storm deductibles are 1%, 2%, 3%, 5%, 7.5% or 10%. So if that same building A was insured for $1M the hurricane deductible for that building would be $10k at 1%, $20k at 2%, $30k at 3%, $50k at 5%, $75k at 7.5% and $100k at 10%. Remember that deductible applies again to each additional building that is damaged. For high-rise properties these deductibles can be in the millions of dollars.

Calendar Year Deductible: Some property policies contain a “Calendar Year” hurricane deductible. That means there is one aggregate deductible for the entire calendar year. For example if building A has a $30k deductible and in one storm the building suffered $15k in covered damages the $30k minimum deductible would not have been hit. However, if another hurricane hits later in September or October building A now only has a $15k deductible remaining since the first $15k was met in a prior storm. What is vital here is that the only way the carrier can give a building a credit towards the deductible is by the insured filing an official claim.

Rate Increase: Will filing a hurricane claim increase my insurance renewal premium? When it comes to wind insurance in the State of Florida the rates the association pays are baked in based on the claim experience of the property market as a whole. So whether your association files a claim or not, the chances of rates increasing will be more significantly impacted by how the market losses are as a whole vs. what your individual property has filed. Associations that didn’t file claims aren’t going to see a substantial difference from ones that did. What will more impact the rates will be the age, location, construction, updates, etc… of the association. The older, worse off properties will get the worse of any rate increases. It is too early to tell yet what type of impact we are going to see for the 2023 renewals but we were already projecting a 15-30% lift before Ian so it certainly isn’t going to help. Will depend how bad Ian is and what more may come.

Falling Trees: Is the association responsible for an association tree that falls on an owners individual home or car? - No. The association’s property policy has no insurable interest in an owner’s personal home or vehicle. These claims need to be filed with the owners insurance policy. The owner’s insurance policy will pay for damage to their property and include payment for removal of the tree from the property. The only time the association’s insurance policy would get involved is if the owner of the property OR the owner’s insurance carrier attempts to subrogate the loss against the association claiming the association was negligent for the tree falling on their property. This may have traction if the tree was reported as dead or not properly maintained and the association did nothing about it but outside of that it would be tough to prove association negligence in a hurricane. Either way if that occurred the association’s general liability policy would respond and defend the association.

Landscaping Insurance: Do I have coverage for my landscaping? In Florida, property policies we generally do not provide coverage for landscaping that is damaged on property. Therefore, any trees or plants that are damaged in the storm are not insurable items. However, if a tree falls on a covered piece of association property (gate, wall, pool, building, etc…) then the cost of to remove the tree, is covered. Keep this in mind when reporting debris removal. Debris that is removed off of association insured property has a better chance of being picked up in the debris removal sub limits.

Additional Helpful Links: Several helpful links including a hurricane guide, storm tracker, AssuredPartners National Website & the Federal Government Website have been provided below.