Public Records Exemptions for Modeling Continue
Two existing public records exemptions relating to catastrophe modeling have been extended due to action by the Florida legislature and approval by Governor Crist. House Bill 7121 has become Chapter Law 2010-137. This law extends the public records exemption for loss and exposure data submitted by insurers in the development and maintenance of the public hurricane model (operated by Florida International University). The public records exemption is necessary to protect insurers’ proprietary data as they make information available to FIU. The new Chapter Law also will require FIU to prepare a report each year beginning October 1, 2011, summarizing aggregate loss and exposure data by county. The report will identify the number of homeowners’ policies and Total Insured Value under those policies in each county. In addition, the report will provide information such as decade of construction and existence of mitigation techniques at the county level. Likewise, the report will identify hurricane losses aggregated to the county level.
The legislature also has extended the ability of the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology to review the trade secrets of private modeling firms’ catastrophe models outside of public meetings. The new law, now known as Chapter Law 2010-89, allows the modeling commission to continue to review modelers’ trade secrets in non-public meetings that are recorded but are not available for public review. The extension of this law continues Florida’s public policy of encouraging the development and evolution of private models by protecting their trade secrets while at the same time ensuring that the statutorily-created Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology will be able to conduct the reviews necessary to determine whether the proprietary models meet standards pertaining to accuracy and reliability.