Florida property insurance is a sea of red ink

The Legislature passed a bill in its 2021 session making major changes in Florida’s property insurance markets. Time will now tell whether it will help Florida-based property insurers stanch losses that doubled in 2020 from 2019. For three years running they’ve lost money on underwriting. Among other provisions, the new law allows for Citizens Property Insurance, the provider of last resort, to raise its premiums by as much as 15% a year instead of the current maximum of 10%. [Source: Florida Trend]

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Florida hurricane season 2021: The good news and bad news

Florida’s a national leader when it comes to its statewide building code, the nation’s strongest for windstorms. Since Florida adopted the statewide code in 2002, builders have pulled some 1.59 million single-family home building permits — equal to 28% of the state’s single-family homes. The statewide code is “making the entire state much safer,” says Miami engineer John Pistorino, who has consulted with Florida government bodies for decades on building codes. The hardening of Florida shouldn’t be overstated — upward of 70% of Florida houses don’t meet current code. [Source: Florida Trend]

In Florida and across the country, rural COVID-19 vaccinations lag

COVID-19 vaccination rates lag in vast swaths of rural Florida compared to the rest of the state — a pattern that also has been seen in other areas of the country, a new report shows. The report, released Friday by the state Department of Health, said 55 percent of people in Florida ages 12 and older had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But in 23 of the state’s 67 counties — almost all rural and largely spread across North Florida — the rates were below 40 percent. [Source: News Service of Florida]

Editorial: A Supreme Court ruling means a rare win for public records rights in Florida

The Florida Supreme Court has handed down an important — but increasingly rare — open records win that’s going to mean faster access to information not just for the state’s press corps but for all Floridians. The court last week finalized a new rule that no longer requires clerks of courts across Florida to be responsible for redacting confidential information from civil court documents. That responsibility used to fall — as it should — on those who file the documents, not those who store them. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

Why are workers in Florida, and across the U.S., still dying from heat exhaustion?

Overall, more than 65,000 people visit the emergency room for heat-related stress a year and about 700 die from heat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of these cases are concentrated in Florida, where heat drove more than 6,000 people to the emergency room in 2019, a 35 percent increase from 2010, when heat resulted in roughly 5,000 ER visits, according to data from the CDC. [Source: NBC News]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association launches jobs site [Florida Politics]
The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association has launched a website for employers and job seekers to post and find jobs in the hospitality industry. GreatFloridaJob.com aims to be an easy-to-use website for job seekers to find positions. The website is free to use for job seekers and FRLA members can list jobs for free. Nonmembers can also post job listings for $50.

› In Madeira Beach, a land use glitch poses a quiet threat to many properties [Tampa Bay Times]
Village Boulevard may look like a typical beach town strip of surf and trinket shops in one- and two-story buildings. But like many of the developments along Gulf Boulevard and into Johns Pass Village, the main hubs of this two-mile-long city, they are potentially threatened by a bureaucratic glitch that has quietly existed for years. In 2008, Madeira Beach changed its comprehensive plan to allow more square footage of development per property than what the county permits for the commercial areas.

› Jacksonville Jaguars to hold town hall series on Shipyards [Jacksonville Daily Record]
The Jacksonville Jaguars will begin a series of town hall meetings June 15 about its $441 million plan to develop the Downtown Shipyards and a football performance center. Team leadership emailed City Council members last week with a 14-meeting agenda across Northeast Florida in Duval, Nassau, Clay and St. Johns counties.

› Sarasota-Manatee pet care businesses 'bark' back post-pandemic [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Doggy daycares and boarding kennels became nearly obsolete overnight last March, as countless people began working from home and canceling vacations. Dog walkers lost gigs, with owners home to walk their own canines. And trainers couldn’t hold classes or visit homes, with health officials still not sure that COVID-19 couldn’t spread from human to dog to human.

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› Bradenton coffee company prioritizes staying approachable [Business Observer]
When Josh and Abbey Schmitt began roasting coffee beans in 2013 in their garage in Oregon, they had no idea their hobby would turn into a business. Back then, Josh was roasting coffee beans using a popcorn popper for friends and family. A year or two later, the couple moved to Bradenton, Abbey’s hometown. Diving into their hobby, they began to sell bags of roasted coffee beans at the Bradenton Farmers’ Market. At first, it was only a few bags. Then it started to grow.

› Florida Farmworker Association Coordinator Discusses Aldicarb Ruling, Pesticide Use [WFSU]
A federal appeals court recently dealt a second blow to Florida citrus growers’ efforts to expand the use of a toxic pesticide. In January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency registered aldicarb for use on 100,000 acres of citrus crops across the state. More than a decade prior the agency announced plans to phase out the pesticide's use nationwide by 2015. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control finds too much exposure to aldicarb may cause acute symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness and headache.

› Artemis I core stage goes vertical at Kennedy Space Center [Orlando Sentinel ]
Up, down, up, down. The 212-foot long core stage for the Artemis I rocket to the moon has been living life both horizontally and vertically, but it’s time it went vertical and stayed that way. NASA is preparing to mate the massive central component of the Space Launch System rocket to the twin solid rocket boosters already in place atop the mobile launcher in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center.

› Vaccinated visitors soon can take off masks at Disney World [Tampa Bay Times]
Walt Disney World in Florida is making it easier to see smiles again, but guests still can’t hug the characters. Starting Tuesday, face masks will be optional for visitors to the theme park resort who are vaccinated, though Disney workers won’t require proof of vaccination, the company said on its website.