People’s Trust sues over claims

Insurer takes customers to court

Suddenly, People’s Trust Insurance is suing dozens of its own policyholders.

The Deerfield Beach-based insurer, opening a new front in the long-running war over third-party claims assignments, has filed more than 80 lawsuits against customers it accuses of failing to comply with the requirements of their policies.

After suing policyholders in Broward and Miami-Dade counties just 12 times in the first half of 2017, People’s Trust has filed 67 such suits since July 1. The company has targeted policyholders in other parts of the state, including Orange, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, but in much smaller numbers.

“It’s very disconcerting. I’ve heard it’s increasing in frequency,” said Paul Handerhan, spokesman for the insurance industry watchdog group Florida Association for Insurance Reform. “I’ve never heard of an insurance company going out and suing its policyholders like this.”

As of June 30, People’s Trust had 56,511 policies in the tricounty region and 135,530 statewide, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s QUASR database.

The Sun Sentinel reviewed a sample of the 79 suits filed in Broward and Miami-Dade so far this year. Of that sample, most of the suits accuse the policyholders of failing to allow People’s Trust’s “preferred contractor”— Rapid Response Team — to fix the damages that triggered their claim.

People’s Trust calls Rapid Response Team, which it created in 2009, an affiliated company. The companies share two corporate officers, according to records on file with the state Division of Corpora-