Continue to Allow Rebating Flood Insurance

Jerry Wahl, President of Statewide Condominium Insurance, announced that his company is sponsoring a petition for allowing Florida based insurance agencies to continue offering flood insurance rebates to their insured’s. Currently, Florida Statute 626.572 allows rebating to all insured’s in the same actuarial class. In a letter dated April 4th, 2012, the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) has announced that effective October 1st,2012, rebating will not be authorized on new and renewal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policies.

This decision will increase flood premiums to NFIP policy holders that currently receive a flood rebate from their insurance agent/agency. In many cases flood insurance policy holders receive as much as 15% of their premiums returned annually through rebating.

Mr. Wahl stated “We created Statewide in 1996 as a niche insurance agency in Vero Beach, specializing in insurance programs for Commercial Condominiums and Apartment complexes. After much research, we discovered a Florida Statute that has allowed us to return millions of dollars to our clients over the past fifteen years. We began writing through an NFIP approved Write Your Own (WYO) company and began selling flood insurance at a lower cost than any other agency in Florida.

To this day we continue to help clients throughout Florida save on their flood insurance costs. Since then, other agencies have copied us, but we were the first. Currently we offer a 15% rebate to all of our new and renewal clients that purchase an NFIP flood policy through Statewide. This amounts to over $2,000,000 in rebate checks returned to our Condominium and Apartment clients annually. That’s a huge annual savings that our clients have always counted on, especially in our current economy. FEMA is now dictating that this legal practice of rebating be discontinued. That means many NFIP clients will now be forced to pay up to 15% more for flood insurance in addition to Florida’s rising property premiums. To make matters worse, the NFIP is projected to have an increase in their rates of between 2%-10% depending on the Flood Zone beginning October 1st. , 2012. That would create an increase of between 17% and 25% in flood insurance costs for many condo associations throughout Florida!

Why is FEMA attempting to eliminate this method of reducing insurance premiums for the citizens of Florida? Times are tough and we believe all businesses should be permitted to conduct operations in accordance with Florida Statutes. In an effort to continue the rebating program that we originated back in 1996, we have authored a petition asking FEMA to allow the practice of rebating on NFIP policies in Florida to continue in accordance with state statute. Our goal is to get 100,000 signatures by August 1, 2012 so please help us to continue to help you and let’s get this decision reversed. Statewide Condominium Insurance asks everyone to log onto our website at www.statewidecondo.com where you’ll find a link to sign this petition. You may also contact Bruce Kestenbaum, Operations Manager, for additional information at 772-316-1301.

See FEMA letter here.