Florida Lawyers Catch State Agency Destroying Insurance Company Records
Despite all the lawyer jokes, injury lawyers and those members of the bar who hold insurance companies accountable once again stepped in to protect consumers. It seems that for a year, a Florida state agency has thrown away records relating to consumer disputes with insurance companies. Of course, by destroying the material, the state makes it harder to track bad business practices by the insurance industry and uncover patterns of abuse. Such a practice is horrendous.
The documents are extra, unsolicited attachments to state forms called civil remedy notices that state administrators say they don't have the room or manpower to deal with. Florida law requires consumers to file the notices before they sue their insurers, giving companies 60 days to settle before the cases proceed to court.
The Department of Financial Services gets around 10,000 of these notices a year. It took the position that Florida's broad public records laws did not apply to the large volumes of information lawyers sent to be added to the notices file. Consequently, clerks were instructed to destroy the documents, which consisted of detailed explanations of the disputes, court pleadings and insurance company responses.
Instead of cracking down on bad insurers, by keeping this valuable information accessible to consumers and their lawyers, the agency was essentially covering up insurer misconduct. For now this practice has been put on hold. Tracking industry practices is exactly what Alex Sink vowed she would do when she took over as CFO earlier this year. We will have to keep an eye on this situation.
