Fingerprints, Background Checks for Florida Insurance Execs, Directors, Stockholders?

Florida insurance company officers, employees, board members and even stockholders would have to undergo background checks and fingerprinting under a wide-ranging bill approved by a state House panel Wednesday morning.

House Bill 1263, sponsored by state Rep. Linda Chaney, R-St. Petersburg, would authorize the Office of Insurance Regulation to require insurers and proposed insurers to submit full sets of fingerprints to a state law enforcement agency. The background checks could be used by OIR to deny or revoke carriers’ certificates of authority, the bill notes.

“The Legislature finds that criminal activity of insurers poses a particular danger to the residents of this state,” reads the bill, which was approved Wednesday by the House Subcommittee on Insurance and Banking.

Chaney did not cite criminal activity by insurers that may have prompted that section of the bill, but she said it’s a consumer-protection measure.

“We don’t want insurance companies or any of the management authority to have, maybe, some unsavory background where they were not financially responsible,” Chaney told the subcommittee, a meeting that was streamed on The Florida Channel.

A 2002 Florida law already bars insurance companies from hiring officers and directors that had been in management positions at insolvent carriers, for at least two years after the insolvency. Florida regulators made headlines in attempting to enforce that provision in 2024 and 2025.

Chaney’s bill also would give OIR broader authority on insurance carriers in other ways, as well. It would grant the office the power to issue cease-and-desist orders for insurance firms that are not properly licensed in the state.

“The authority to issue a cease and desist extends to any person who aids and abets in the violation of the Florida Insurance Code,” reads a legislative analysis of the bill.

The measure also would require auto insurers to utilize only those loss hurricane models that have been approved by the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, when filing for rate changes. Under current regulations, auto insurance companies are exempt from using standard hurricane loss models, three of which are approved by the hurricane loss commission.

“You can have a small, independent, fringe auto company come in with their own model and set rates according to that,” Chaney said at the meeting. “And OIR doesn’t really have a way to analyze whether those are appropriate rates…”

The bill also would require property insurers to give at least a minimum level of premium discounts for home construction techniques that exceed Florida Building Code requirements.

The committee approved the bill without opposition. It now faces at least one more committee hearing in the House. No companion bill has been filed in the Senate, which could lessen the measure’s chances of being passed into law this year.

A second bill offered by Chaney, HB 1265, would exempt the National Association of Insurance Commissioners from being required to provide deposition testimony in Florida litigation. But questions were raised about the scope of the exemption and its impact on discovery in insurance lawsuits. Chaney agreed to tweak the wording after working with members who had concerns.

Photo: Chaney at Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing. (The Florida Channel)

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