Army of adjusters

Florida insurer expecting 100,000 homeowner claims

Citizens Insurance to hire, deploy additional personnel.

Expecting Hurricane Irma to generate 100,000 claims, Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s governing board on Wednesday suspended normal contracting procedures so the company can pay more to hire additional claims adjusters.

With Irma projected to make landfall in South Florida sometime Sunday, Citizens is concerned about its ability to compete with private insurers here and in Texas for independent adjusters.

The company expects to begin deploying adjusters to evaluate Irma claims in Florida beginning Wednesday.

The emergency rules suspension enables Citizens to match or exceed other companies’ offers, and also waive other requirements, including holding a Florida license.

Property insurers rely on the ability to summon independent adjusters after catastrophes, so they don’t need to employ large numbers of people during normal periods.

Citizens, the second-largest property insurer in South Florida, has 262,000 policyholders in areas where hurricane-force winds are possible, said Jay Adams, chief of claims for Citizens’, the state-run “insurer of last resort.”

Industry experts say South Florida property owners should expect delays getting adjusters to their properties if widespread damage results.

“If folks have claims in Miami and they are insured by Citizens, I’d anticipate some delays,” said Locke Burt, president of Security First Insurance Co. “There are only a finite number of field adjusters in the U.S.”

Currently, adjusters are in extremely short supply, Citizens officials said.

Adjusters were also lured away from Florida to work on claims in areas impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Since Harvey struck Texas, 20 independent adjusters working for Citizens on nonstorm-related claims quit to work on Harvey claims, Adams said.

Citizens already has adjusted its day rate from $625 to $750, but other companies are paying more, including Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, that state’s insurer of last resort, which is paying $900 per day. Another Texas company raised its daily rate to $800 per day plus a $120 daily per diem, Adams said.

And State Farm reopened a catastrophe claims processing center in Jacksonville and asked for 300 claims adjusters, paying them at similar rates.

Adams said private market insurers in Florida are offering independent adjusters up to $1,400 per day for guaranteed post-storm availability.

Peter J. Crosa, president of the National Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters, said he has heard of adjuster companies offering signing bonuses. “Everyone doesn’t have the adjusters they need to have. There’s a big shortage out there,” he said.

Travis Miller, spokesman for Universal Property & Casualty, the largest property insurer in Florida, said Universal “does not anticipate any problems mobilizing the adjusters that are under contract” but he acknowledged that market costs for adjusters are increasing in anticipation of Irma.

Citizens’ emergency rules suspension is authorized under Gov. Rick Scott’s declaration of a state of emergency Sunday for Florida. The declaration authorizes state agencies to suspend “any regulatory statute” that could hinder or delay necessary action in coping with the emergency.