The insurance industry insists that the state’s risk from hurricanes is only part of the problem, and points to a legal system it says promoted litigation abuse and excess claims.
“This is a man-made crisis,” said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, who is based in Florida. The insurance industry pushed for and won a number of reforms meant to curb what it saw as abuse, but so far it hasn’t changed the outlook for insurers, partly because of a flood of nearly 300,000 lawsuits the III said was filed just before the law took effect.