Florida report on insurance failure raises more questions than answers

Sawgrass Mutual’s insolvency was the first in the current wave of company failures.

After Sawgrass Mutual Insurance Co. went under in 2018, Florida regulators were supposed to do a financial autopsy to determine what had gone wrong.

But they didn’t hire forensic accountants to dig into Sawgrass Mutual’s finances, as they had in previous insolvency cases.

And while they ultimately blamed the company’s demise on “mismanagement,” their final report offered few details and little analysis. Unlike some previous reports that ran the length of novels, this one spanned four pages.

“This isn’t an autopsy,” said former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, who criticized state regulators for moving too slowly on cases last year. “This is just a death certificate.”

A spokesperson for state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, one of two officials regulating insurance in Florida, said the report was brief and no forensic accountants were needed because Sawgrass Mutual in 2018 “had no policyholders and very few claims remaining.”

Observers and lawmakers called the sparse report troubling, particularly amid a continuing wave of insolvencies that has contributed to Floridians’ skyrocketing homeowners insurance premiums, the highest in the nation. Sawgrass was the first of 10 homeowners insurance companies to go out of business in the last five years.

Past insolvency reports have repeatedly uncovered insurance executives reaping big paydays as their companies failed.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/08/23/property-homeowners-insurance-sawgrass-insolvent-patronis-regulators/

Florida Republicans aren't interested in detailed audits of failed insurance companies. It would expose the overwhelming amount of campaign contributions those insurance companies made to them.