For this Advisory Report, AAIS sat down with Ryan Purdy, Director at Merlinos & Associates - a Davies Company, to discuss key takeaways from the recent Florida Chamber of Commerce Insurance Summit. He also touched on key trends to look for moving into 2023 as well as updates specifically seen across the Florida insurance market.

Purdy shared his biggest takeaway from the Florida Chamber of Commerce conference that took place at the end of 2022.  He sees a strong alignment across all stakeholders in the property insurance market in Florida. "Both the political leadership, corporate leadership, and leadership of the Office of Insurance Regulation shared a real desire to try and tackle the systemic problems facing the industry," said Purdy. "That really paid off shortly after the conference through some actions that were taken in a special session in the Florida legislature." 

Key trends that Purdy is looking forward to in 2023 include broad sweeping reforms made within the law that include additional assistance to carriers for their reinsurance programs, elimination of assignment of benefits within the state of Florida for property contracts, and elimination of one-way attorney statutes that really caused a lot of problems with inflation of litigation within the state.  On the Florida CAT Fund and reinsurance market, Purdy said "we are seeing an increased appetite by the legislature and the government of Florida to expand public reinsurance."

According to Purdy's, Florida litigation "… has been a hot topic in the industry for several years, with Florida overrepresenting litigation statistics for property in some cases tenfold what it does in the national representation of claims. This was by far the biggest topic and the biggest concern of the industry and addressed thoroughly in the new law structure set up in the December special session. This is a major change in the market in the way that the laws work in the state for property insurance."

Purdy went on to share his thoughts on technology and how it's changing the insurance industry. "Some material effects we are seeing from technology includes hype around insurtechs." According to Purdy, many senior executives that have been somewhat skeptical that the industry can be dramatically changed by technology are now adopting certain platforms and applications that are changing how insurance companies operate. “These are driven by data acquisition, data availability, and basic applications like visual AI for roof inspections and understanding property interior through self-inspection.  Some of the emerging AI tools are making the collection of information in near real-time very possible."

To view the full interview with Ryan Purdy, please click the video above.