[Excerpts take from Artemis]
Associate David Coon spoke at ILS Bermuda Convergence 2022, an international conference which brings together key players in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance sector. As the only lawyer on a panel discussing the inflation of insured losses from natural catastrophe events, Coon weighed the likelihood that Florida’s recent legislative reforms will ease the stress on its property insurance market, and called Hurricane Ian a “trial by fire” testing whether those reforms will be enough.
The panel moderator, Hanni Ali (Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, Hamilton Insurance), asked Coon for a bold prediction about what the leading excuses could be for insurance CEO’s trying to explain poor performance five years from now. Coon responded to say that he felt litigators, contractors, and the Florida legislature will face less blame in five years—however, that’s not because he thinks legislation to date has fixed the issues faced by Florida’s property insurance market, but rather because it hasn’t.
Coon stated his opinion that ultimately, the recent incremental legislative changes will not prove significant enough to have the desired effect of moderating claims inflation, litigation, and fraud. The changes, Coon says, are “not bold enough to bring down costs to insurers and ultimately the policy holders.”
He predicts Hurricane Ian will be a test to see if the recent reforms will succeed in preventing the substantial loss creep experienced after Hurricane Irma in 2017. He feels confident that if not, legislators will take more drastic action than they have so far.
Coon is an associate at Selendy Gay, with experience in complex commercial litigation, appeals, insurance and reinsurance dispites, and regulatory and enforcement investigations. He was joined on the panel by Sina Thieme, Director at Willis Towers Watson and Jacob Weber, Partner and head of Analytics at Elementum Advisors.
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