¶ Intro / Opening
Do you remember a year ago in Miami Beach, there was a huge beachfront condo collapse. It was unthinkable that it would happen in the United States. It was all over the news. 98 people lost their lives and we all thought that buildings that big, were kept up to spec and in no danger of
collapse. Well, that situation known as the Surfside condo collapse sent shockwaves throughout the US and more specifically, the Florida property market settlements topped $130 million, causing some carriers to exit the Florida market and causing others to pull back on their property and liability coverage. In Florida. We're seeing rising rates and deductibles and carriers becoming much more selective. Good thing we've got sim bridges joining us today.
He's the vice president of underwriting for coastal insurance underwriters in Florida. And he's next right here on the podcast. Welcome to the placing you first podcast from CRC group. I'm your host Dan Wentz. And this podcast features news and insights from CRC group's vast knowledge base of 4300 plus associates who right in excess of $23.5 billion of premium annually and we're giving you insider access to what's happening in our company and the types of insurance we
place. This is the placing you first podcast. Sam is on the podcast today. Sam is stepping up big first person from constellation affiliated partners to join us on this podcast. Sam is from coastal insurance underwriters, who was a part of constellation affiliated partners and constellation affiliated partners recently joined CRC group. So Sam, welcome to the CRC group family. We are so happy to have you here.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a good a good thing so far. We're excited about that opportunity.
It's been a lot of change for you guys. But hopefully we found a place where you can stay and grow and develop and get more business and all that good stuff. So we are so happy to have you on here and thank you for being the the brave person to step up to the podcast first. I'm sure after this, you will probably get a bunch of wannabes who are gone. Hey, I want to be like sin. Can I get on that podcast? Let me talk about my business, Ben Sims here today to talk about
¶ Refresh our memories on the Surfside Condo collapse?
something that comes from his home state or he's living currently in Florida. The Miami surf side condo collapse. It was a big deal. Probably was it last year?
Yeah, it was was last year in the summertime. Yeah, I remember that pretty vividly, simply because it was such a devastating thing to see and watch. But I remember waking up that morning to text and a lot of voicemails from carrier partners. Just wondering if we had any line of coverage or anything on that particular account not to lighten up what really happened because it was a devastating loss of life and, and devastating thing to watch.
And this was when one of those I mean surf site was one of those beachfront condos miami beach there, right. And it just collapsed. Just collapse.
Yeah, it was a 12 storey building, I believe. And it was almost like a wing of it collapsed. So there's almost like two sections of it. And you saw just one side of it completely collapsed to the ground. Pretty crazy. It looked just like a demolition of a building. Just kind of crazy to see.
¶ What has the Florida property market's response been to this situation?
What exactly has this done to the Florida insurance market? Has it made things harder?
Yeah, down. So I'd say you know, we're already experiencing the market hardening some there's been tons of natural disasters between hurricanes and wildfires and, and earthquakes outside of the country that have impacted the property US property market, even just from from that perspective, and that to see this happen, you I think it just caused a whole lot of uncertainty with carriers.
Because you're looking at this a little bit differently, you know, you can kind of plan for a model and get prepared for natural disasters. But this was more of a, you know, coming from the inside of the building and
structural integrity. And so I think that from the market perspective, hardening mainly came from I'd say tightening of underwriting guidelines and tightening of how you look at risks, as well, as we did see some markets completely pull out of the Florida market as what I believe is a result of the the Champlain towers or concerns with riding property in Florida on a go forward basis, just a proximity to the ocean.
¶ What are the carrier concerns?
I guess this was scary, because it was something that could affect more condos all throughout Florida, all throughout beach franchises across the nation. So yeah, that would be very concerning for a carrier, I think is speaking of carrier concerns, what are their main concerns? When looking at things? I know that this is probably changed things a little bit as to how they underwrite.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think overall when you're looking at property insurance, you want to make sure these buildings that you're you're looking at are well maintained. Yeah, no structural issues, electrical issues of concern that could cause further loss, I think This particular scenario has property underwriters digging even further into structural integrity, particularly relating to waterproofing issues and building envelopes and how they protect the building from any
kind of water intrusion. And this isn't just a Florida thing. I know that I'm based in Florida, but I've read a lot of recent articles about buildings and other states that have had partial collapses or whatever as it relates to water intrusion and building envelope issues. So I think, you know, making sure buildings are maintained, and they're protecting themselves properly as of concern to these insurance companies on a go forward basis as a result of this loss.
¶ Talk about the focus on financial resilience for insureds.
And one of the keywords that comes up in the article we did about this, the surf side kind of collapses, the carrier's are focusing on financial resilience. Can you talk a little bit about this and and what this could look like to insurance with why they're focusing on it?
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the important thing in short and skinny is making sure that insured's have the money when these issues come up to be able to make the proper repairs. And I think one of the terms that comes up is aging infrastructures, and those building components continue to age. And just being prepared for those, it's kind of like owning your home and being prepared to replace your water heater after
a certain number of years. It's it's looking at these commercial buildings and saying, Hey, we may have this come up in the next 1015 years. So we need to start saving now for that. And so we primarily focus on condominium associations, in general, with commercial buildings, I think focusing on
budgeting for maintenance. And when you're looking at condo specific business, they start digging into more about reserve studies to make sure there's proper reserving for these maintenance issues and preparation for financial resilience varies. But each type of insured, you may have someone that, particularly in the condo space, which is a more, you know, fixed budget type building, where they may have to do more planning out and focusing more on reserve studies a long term, how to manage that.
And then you may have some that can easily assess their unit owners at a drop of a hat and be able to have that money available for maintenance. So I think it's just understanding what you have in front of you as far as what type of association and what type of members they have, and and how you prepare for that. So focusing on that financial aspect of how are they going to take care of these things and issues when they come up instead of let them fester and cause bigger problems?
¶ Any advice for agents writing property in Florida?
What advice do you have for agents that are approaching this these kinds of risks and condos and big buildings like this,
believe it or not, in this day and age and let technology it's hard to believe but I think record keeping and document keeping can be very much a challenge for insurance in the commercial arena, I think it's super important to be able to keep up with your maintenance
records what you're doing. From an agent's perspective, being able to go to insurance and say, you know, these are the things you provide a maid you have these other items that might help tell a better story about your particular building and why you're a better rest and what other buildings these underwriters might be seeing or that will either make them have better pricing or be eligible for a market that might look at it differently. Having all those records available, I think is
important. I was working insured's just being prepared for what the different markets are asking for as a result of some of these things, whether it's looking for financial records or looking for maintenance records or upkeeps. A lot of carriers are going to ask for updated information. I think that's super important to know and and have firsthand too, as well. And if they're working with insurance, just providing some additional level of detail to kind of dig into the agents
expertise. So if they can start talking to him about early warning signs of potential damage that they may want to address up front before they become problems that I know that's not necessarily an agent placing insurance topic, but any kind of loss control upfront that I can give them or, or even have recommendations of what they may need to do on an annual basis to make sure that they're taking care of their building and safeguarding it to give them the best possible outcome from
insurance perspective.
¶ Tell us about Coastal Underwriters.
Yeah, it sounds like you need to start with that conversation with your wholesale broker or agent or maybe you've sim at Coastal insurance underwriters, especially now in this, this market that we're dealing with right now you've got to have all your ducks in a row, you've got to have all the information needed to get that quote and to get you know, the best quote you possibly can when it comes to this stuff.
Absolutely. Sam, why don't you tell us a little bit about CO so I know that people are not super, or at least our listeners, this is the first time there they may be hearing about coastal insurance underwriters. What do you guys do?
Yeah, so we're we're a program administrator that we focus on condominium and homeowners association business we do a sprinkling of Golf and Country clubs as well. And we work in multiple states so we have a good bit of knowledge on you know, the different markets that we place business and so we
write package business. One of the things that we've excelled in as we took particularly in Florida what was the unbundled market with placements On a single account, you know, being four or five different lines of coverage and offered a package to our agents to be able to put that on one policy, I think, which was a nice creative way for us to enter into the market.
And then also, we like to say that we apply technology to our business, something that we've done as we built our systems from, from scratch while working with our retail agents that's been very efficient and beneficial to our business and how we've been able to grow over the past 14 years or so. You know, riding condominium business,
if you haven't explored constellation affiliated partners, you can do that at Constellation ap.com. That website will give you all of the CRC group programs. And you can look through all the different brands and all the different specialties that we have there. I'm actually googling your web address, right? Sorry, what is it? Maybe you can tell me?
Yes. www.ciuis.com is our conduct focus on we also have a personal on the strip and Florida based a website at WWW dot c iu solutions.com.
Great if you need some more information about coastal or any of that good stuff that Tim was just talking about. That's the website that you hit up. And then we appreciate you enlightening us on the Florida property market today. It's been super helpful.
Yeah, thank you, Dan, for having me. I appreciate it.