Florida needs to end policies keeping Hurricane Ian’s victims from fixing their homes | Opinion

The catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Ian is compounded by Florida’s disastrous policy that has been driving non-state-owned insurance carriers into bankruptcy and limiting our ability to respond appropriately and promptly to homeowners’ needs.

But Tallahassee sees otherwise, of course. It sees the financial distress of insurance carriers as a simple issue: corrupt contractors.

With previous hurricanes, Florida allowed independent contractors, in conjunction with public adjusters, to start restoration and rebuild work immediately to get insured Floridians back into their homes, and the contractors could directly bill the carriers. But now Tallahassee has eliminated this direct insurance billing option in an attempt to reduce litigation.

Therefore, state-licensed contractors no longer can do the work and then bill the carrier directly. As a result, the Ian restoration work simply will not get done until the homeowner either pays cash or waits to be paid by the carrier and only then pay or hire restoration contractors.

In the meantime, homes are in horrible, unsafe conditions, with leaking roofs, missing windows and toxic mold. As a result, many families are living in shelters, with friends or relatives — or even in their cars.

And there is another problem. Water-damage restoration is done by either drying if there is no mold or remediate/remove/replace if components (such as kitchen cabinets, drywall etc.) are mold contaminated. After a storm like Ian, there always is mold. So there is no value in drying out mold-filled homes. Drying mold, simply put, does not restore and is contrary to accepted industry standard professional water-damage restoration that states: “remediate mold prior to any drying.” Billing for drying mold-filled homes rather than remediating/restoring/rebuilding, in my professional opinion, is insurance fraud and should not be paid for.

Currently, there is no way for carriers to go after fraudulent drying, because that is the carrier’s standard operating procedure. Carrier programs are based on drying mold-filled walls and cabinets and then covering up the failed drying with illegally applied chemicals that leave a toxic residue.

It saves money, because it’s cheaper than remediating or rebuilding — and that is carrier insurance fraud. In fact, some carriers cut corners, break state and federals laws, and do not comply with industry standards — all with Tallahassee’s apparent approval. Then, when Carriers get sued, carriers and the state cry, “restoration contractor abuse.“

Tallahassee can quickly replace these ineffective policies:

▪ Modify insurance policies to specify and require that restoration work not performed per industry standards and/or not performed per state and federal law is insurance fraud, thus flagging the invoice as invalid.

▪ Beef up and train the Department of Financial Services Fraud Division to fairly, but expeditiously, get rid of bad contractors without carriers needing to initiate litigation.

▪ For Hurricane Ian claims, by executive order from the governor, allow contractors (roofers, restoration contractors, building contractors) to do direct insurance billing to facilitate timely response.

We must stop these horrible practices that expose people, including babies, to toxic chemicals and toxic mold.

Compounding the problem, state-run Citizens’ horrible cost-cutting procedures where they blow air on mold-filled cabinets, then spray them with toxic chemicals rather than replacing has become the standard throughout Florida’s Insurance industry.

I was hired by a Citizens policy holder in July to perform mold remediation on his property after Citizens horribly failed their restoration. The Citizens contractor attempted to restore a mold-filled kitchen by drying instead of replacing. And they blew toxic mold, with a 3-week-old infant on the premises.

I carefully documented this work in a whistleblower compliant against Citizens, received by Citizens’ Inspector General Mark Kagy, to no avail.

All of this can be easily fixed, unless Tallahassee’s goal is to continue to allow Citizens Insurance to cut corners, leaving sick homes and sick occupants, putting private carriers out of business and gobbling up their policyholders.

Gary Rosen, Ph.D., is a Florida-licensed independent insurance adjuster, licensed building contractor, mold assessor, mold remediator and UCLA-trained biochemist.