Nicole Friedman

speaker

798 appearances 16 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2017 last heard Dec 2024

Nicole Friedman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · How Contractors Can Drive Up Hurricane Irma Costs · 24 Oct 2017 podcast

So maybe there's a small water leak, but they replace the whole kitchen instead of just patching up a pipe. matched

And so the insurers say the cost of the claims is much higher. matched

And then on top of that, if the insurer does not want to pay what the contractor is asking, the contractor, because it now has control of the benefits, can sue the insurer. matched

And so there's also matched

A huge number of lawsuits that didn't exist a decade ago. matched

And so the insurers are also saying the cost of those lawsuits is driving up their costs, which then that money will trickle back to the homeowners in the form of higher premiums. matched

Right. matched

So that's what kind of is happening in Florida is there's these assignment of benefit contracts. matched

And then there's also a statute in Florida that says that if a contractor or a homeowner sues an insurer and is awarded more money than the insurer originally offered to pay, then the insurer has to pay the plaintiff's attorney's fees. matched

And so often the insurers are finding themselves on the hook for the contractor's attorney's fees, which they say is pushing up their costs significantly. matched

to a really large degree. matched

Absolutely. matched

So consumer advocates say the problem is not necessarily that these AOB contracts exist, that homeowners are able to sign over their benefits. matched

They say that can be a really good thing for consumers. matched

If they are a first-time homeowner filing a claim, they might not really understand the process, and they might not really be able to assert themselves with the insurance company as effectively as a contractor can, who kind of speaks the same language, knows what the damage is, and can really matched

get the most money that is needed to deal with that claim. matched

And so consumer advocates say the problem is not assignment of benefits. matched

The problem is fraud and that this is a law enforcement issue and that the laws are already on the books, that fraud is illegal and it's just a matter of better enforcing those laws. matched

The insurers say it's much more an issue of kind of the underlying structure that allows this fraud to happen. matched

So there's some debate going on right now about how best to fix the problem. matched

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