They’ll also pay attorneys’ fees — now averaging an estimated $2 million each month — as policyholders battle over getting their claims paid.
Between January 2011 and June 2013, Citizens has spent more than $16 million on lawyers from 177 different law firms who have successfully challenged the state’s largest insurance company on behalf of policyholders. Citizens collects $2.2 billion in annual premiums and has an administrative operating budget of $205 million.
The data was compiled by the state-run insurer at the request of Rep. Frank Artiles, R-Miami, a licensed general contractor and appraiser who has been one of the Legislature’s most vocal critics of Citizens. He and several plaintiffs lawyers estimate that Citizens has spent a comparable amount on defense attorneys’, with total litigation costs exceeding $30 million a year, but the company does not have that data available.
"How can you ask me to increase my premiums when you are wasting away my premiums in litigation?" asked Artiles, who wants the Legislature to force Citizens’ board of directors to keep the company’s legal costs in check. "How can you function as a board when you cannot control your costs?" Story here.
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