July 2022

17 property insurance companies face ratings downgrade in Florida

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — More than a dozen property insurance companies are set to have their ratings downgraded in Florida.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation confirmed to 8 On Your Side Thursday that 17 insurance companies total are going to be downgraded by the rating agency Demotech. Industry experts say that downgrade will impact hundreds of thousands of families across Florida – including in the Tampa Bay area.

Mortgage providers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require homeowners to have a policy with an A-rated company. Anyone who has a policy with any of the 17 companies that will be losing its A-rating could be forced to find a new policy – potentially one that could cost more and provide less coverage.

8 On Your Side is working to find out which companies are having their ratings downgraded.

Meanwhile, Demotech’s decision to downgrade the companies is being challenged by the FOIR. Commissioner David Altmaier is requesting the rating agency reconsider the conclusions they’ve reached about the viability of the companies.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office sent the following statement after the announcement was made:

“We share the concerns expressed by Florida’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis and the Office

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July 27, 2022 by INSURANCE

Trump PACs paid $2 million this year to law firms representing January 6 witnesses

The biggest recipient of payments from Trump’s political committees is Elections, LLC, a firm that employs several former Trump campaign lawyers and former White House lawyer Stefan Passantino, who at one point represented a key hearing witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. Passantino hasn’t answered CNN’s previous questions about his representation of Hutchinson.

Elections LLC has received more than $1.6 million this year, including $1 million that Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC paid in May to an entity called, E LLC Iolta, which shares a Washington, DC, address with the firm, a recent filing shows.

The Daily Beast first reported the $1 million May payment to E LLC Iolta. CNN has requested comment from Elections, LLC.

The CNN tally examined legal fees paid in this calendar year by the Make America Great Again PAC and Trump’s main political vehicle, Save America PAC. The filings do not show which specific lawyers in the firm received payments, and the filings don’t explain what the law firms did for the Trump committees beyond the broad description of “legal consulting” or “legal expenses.”

It’s impossible to tell from the filings with the Federal Election Commission whether payments to these firms specifically covered work representing witnesses before

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July 27, 2022 by LAW

Bankruptcy filing threatens to delay IMG Center sale effort

A bankruptcy filing threatens to delay a sale of the IMG Center, a 15-story downtown Cleveland office building that has been tied up in court for three years.

James Breen Real Estate LLC, a small company owned by longtime IMG Center steward Jim Breen, filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition on July 20. The move hit the pause button on foreclosure litigation over the IMG Center as a monthslong sales push seemed to be nearing its crescendo.

It’s unclear how long the timeout will last. In Chapter 7 cases, an automatic stay — which stalls lawsuits, foreclosures, repossessions and collection actions against a debtor — typically runs for 90 days or so. But creditors can seek relief from those restrictions.

James Breen Real Estate is not actually a defendant in the foreclosure case, raising the question of whether the stay will have sticking power. At very least, though, the bankruptcy filing complicates an already messy legal fight and adds to the uncertainty around the future of a high-profile property.

Paul Downey, the court-appointed receiver who has been overseeing the IMG Center since October 2019, said he’s unsure about the implications for the sale effort, which he’s conducting with help from

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July 27, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Widower’s car insurance increases after wife’s death, practice is unfair| Betty Lin-Fisher

Widower’s car insurance increases after wife’s death, practice is unfair| Betty Lin-Fisher

Joe Kline of Suffield got an unwelcome surprise when he phoned his insurance agent after his wife of 52 years, Angie, died in April of pulmonary fibrosis. 

Kline wanted to keep insuring two vehicles, but assumed that his insurance rate would go down with one fewer driver. 

Widower’s car insurance increases after wife’s death, practice is unfair| Betty Lin-Fisher

Instead, it went up by about $20 per half. 

“That’s when I got my hackles up,” said Kline. “I didn’t think it would be cut in half, but it shouldn’t have gone up.” 

That made no sense, Kline said, since he was now half the liability to the insurance company. Kline said he knows it’s not much money, but it was the principle that irked him. He lost his multiple-driver discount. 

“So I guess they’re going on the assumption that if you no longer have your spouse in the passenger seat screaming at you to quit tailgating or slow down that makes you a bad driver, right?” he said.

Kline drove a truck for a living and never had an accident in 35 years. If he was a good driver the day before his wife died, why is he a bad driver the day after she died, he said? 

“Just give me a

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July 26, 2022 by INSURANCE

California invites court fight with gun law that mimics Texas on abortion

The governor has maintained the measure is about protecting Californians from gun violence. But it also sends a message to a Supreme Court whose rulings Newsom and fellow California Democrats have derided, essentially daring it to either uphold the gun law or reconsider its logic in backing Texas’s approach.

“The question is whether they are complete and abject hypocrites and frauds if they reject our bill that’s modeled after that abortion bill as it relates to private right of action to go after assault weapons,” Newsom said this month.

Yet the law could stand on precarious legal ground. Even Democratic legislators who favor gun restrictions said as much in passing the bill, conceding that it employed a dubious legal strategy in the service of a larger goal.

“It is my hope and desire that ultimately this bill actually not proceed because the Texas law is found to be wrong, unconstitutional and crazy,” state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) said before voting for the measure in April.

It also drew fierce opposition from ideological allies of Newsom who warned he was empowering the very type of reasoning he had condemned. “There is no way to ‘take advantage of the flawed logic’

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July 26, 2022 by LAW