October 17, 2024 • 10 mins
Newsradio WFLA's Read Shepherd talks with Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis about what to avoid after the hurricanes, a nedw portal that will allow victims to upload documents for review, the "insurance villages" across the state, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' "Operation Blue Roof."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I read Shepherd NewsRadio WFLA, and this is beyond the News.
Today we're talking to Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis
about resources and services for survivors of our recent hurricanes.
Aleen and Milton. Jimmy. Now, we're kind of at the
point where a lot of people might be seeing people
walk through their neighborhoods and saying, hey, we can fix
(00:22):
that roof, or we can fix your we can fix
that door or whatever. What should people be looking out
for and what should people be doing now that they're
starting to think about how best to approach the repairs
to their house.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you for asking that question. I discourage people from
engaging in any type of solicitation what we've already seen.
I got a call yesterday where an elderly woman in
clear Water she had problems with her roof, or at
least she thought she had problems with roof. She called
a friend that she trusted to say, hey, will you
(00:57):
come and check.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Out my roof.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Before her friend could come over to inspect the roof,
a contractor showed up and the contractor says, here, no worries,
I'll take care of this.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'll work with your insurance company.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The contractor, according to the woman's testimony, and we're starting
the investigation, predated the contract, so there was so the
date on the contract would not be it would be
exempt from the position. The Florida legislature had passed to
allow people to get out of these type of contracts,
so they moved it more than ten days. So, I mean,
(01:30):
these guys they're canvassing your neighborhoods. They're trying to get
a piece of your claim. They use a product called
directional of payments. They're directing the payment away from the
policy holder. So I mean, I just tell people, if
you call your insurance company first, get that dialogue started first.
Now the insurance companies on the hook for the improvements
(01:52):
and repairs, not you trying to fight your insurance company
because you were taking advantage of by scammer.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So if somebody actually does sign something that maybe they
shouldn't be signing, is there any way out?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, So if it is a roofer, they've got ten
days from the day that they sign it to get
out of that document. So what I would err on
the side of cautions. Specifically, when if you sign something,
keep your copy of it. We're on the verge. In
the next twenty.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Four hours, we're gonna this is the first off, tell anybody,
we're going to.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Open up a portal where people can submit copies of
their documents and then we're gonna review them. And what
we're gonna do is we're gonna see a pattern of
where these guys are being bad actors. They're using funny
language in the contracts, they're doing it. And it's sad
that I'm having to do this. It's sad that we
even having this discussion. But these son of a guns
(02:48):
just have no bounds when it comes to preying on
people when they're vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And they haven't talked to the entrance company yet.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
All right, Now, the problem in a lot of cases, Jimmy,
is unlicensed contractors going through their neighborhood. Now, now, how
does somebody you know really get the difference between an
unlicensed contractor who's just simply trying to rip them off
and a genuine licensed contractor who really can help and
will do the work for a fair prices. What's that
(03:17):
difference and what should people be looking for?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Great question, So, a licensed Florida contractor on every piece
of collateral material must have their Florida license number on it.
And it's real. I did it yesterday. I looked up
somebody and there you go. You can see on dbbr's
website where they are registered. Now good, that's an extra step,
but you can do it from your phone and you
can verify that they're a licensed Florida contractor. Here's one
(03:43):
of the problems people don't realize. Let's say you do
business with an unlicensed contractor, and let's say they make
repairs to something as significant as your roof. If the
proper permits are not pulled, there's not a single insurance
company that will right or renew that policy because it
wasn't done by a licensed Florida contractor.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So you got it.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean, we saw it after Hurricane Michael, where the
neighborhoods were canvassed by these contractors that were from out
of state that weren't licensed the state of Florida. They
made repairs without pulling the necessary permits. And now when
it comes time to renew your insurance, there's not a
permit on file with the local county. So now since
there's not a permit on file, now who did the
(04:28):
work is this work of a licensed contractor, and now
the poor policy holder, the home owners left holding the
bag of having to hire somebody to come and inspect
and prove and try to own workmanship that they had
nothing to do with.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All Right, So you know, like you know, like I
live in a fifty five and over mobile home community.
I had some damage to some awnings out front. First
thing I did was call the insurance company, and I
haven't talked to anybody else. To me, that sounds like
about the best way to move forward.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Can't get hurt if you're talking.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Look, I told people I had a contractor call me
and was complaining, Well, Jimmy, you just can't be so
hard on us contractors telling people not to sign anything.
And I said, well, you know what's wrong with somebody
talking to the insurance company first before they talk to you. Well,
the insurance companies aren't responding quick enough. I said, well,
you know what, that's a problem that we need to address.
(05:21):
I said, so what did I do? He told me
the carrier that he was having problems with. I called
the carrier and I jacked him up yesterday. I said, look,
I said, these contractors want to do the work. You
need to go ahead and get that adjuster out there
so this authorization process can move forward. But again it's
a disaster. There's a reason why they cause these events, disasters.
And you got the contractors who are hungry to go
(05:43):
do work. They know that the longer they delay, that's
the less opportunity they have to pick up more jobs
to do. And so you know that's why we do
the insurance villages, the insurance villages. By gosh, if you
don't come to our insurance village, shame on you. You're
missing the best opportunity because my office is sitting on
top of the decision makers in the insurance company to
(06:05):
get your process started. We are we're the supervisor. We're
their babysitting making sure they do right. I mean inst
In the last forty eight hours, the insurance companies already
paid out over a million dollars in advanced living expense money.
That's money you go get a hotel room, or rent
an apartment or just stabilize yourself.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So we tell the carriers, if you want to participate
in our insurance village, you got to write checks on site.
And depending on type of policy you got, it depends on.
It determines on what type of money you're going to receive.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Okay, I think you sort of answered this, but let's
keep going on on that vein Jimmy, Yeah, how are
the insurance companies doing? Are they responding?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, the insurance companies are responding, but the people have
to show up and then Look, you can call your
insurance company, you can email. The insurance companies actually have
been leveraging technology in the last storm, last couple of storms,
better than ever before, whether it be push notifications, using
smart apps, phone calls, emails. Okay, so your insurance company
(07:07):
may have engaged you already. You may not realize that
because you may have thought the email was spam. I mean,
my home was not in the threat of this storm.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I picture I got.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Five emails from my carrier trying to just keep me
prepared if I needed to know something. So, I mean,
the carriers are trying, but the policyholder has to go.
I tell people all the time, Look, there's good contractors,
there's bad contractors, there's good there's good insurance companies, there's
bad insurance companies. But you've got good policy holders, you've
got bad policy holders. Some people, you know, are overwhelmed.
(07:38):
They don't think people buy a home, some build a home,
very few rebuild a home. So rebuilding a home is
it's definitely a challenging undertaking. And this is why we
do the insurance Village to force this face to face engagement,
which is just it's just a more humanitarian way to
help people put their life back together.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, I've got I've got like four of those villages
opening this week, some I think you of today in
the Tampa Bay area, Lakeland, Plants City.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
All of all of them, Yeah, all of them are
open right now.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
We opened up our last one in Plant City yesterday,
and so the Bradington Village and the Plant City Village
are the ones that are getting the most traffic right now.
And so you know what we did with every storm,
We open up the villages. You know, we let them
run for a few days and then we demobilize them
and then we move them around. Because different people in
(08:30):
different parts of the communities, you know, are affected differently,
so we try to be sensitive to people's traveling habits.
But but right now, the locations that we picked are
the ones that had electricity. They were a safe place
because it's nice when you're overwhelmed to sent air condition.
We do this most times, we do it in a
parking lot.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Okay, Jimmy, I know you're busy, but is there anything
else you want to get out there? Anything else of
people that you feel people need to know.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I'm getting better at explaining this one. So Operation
Blue Roof has been initiated by the Army Corps Engineers.
That's one eight eight eight Roof blue b l U.
That is a totally free service by the Army Corps
Engineers to have a contractor come out and put a
(09:15):
blue tarp on the roof of your house at no
expense to you, even if you have insurance.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So call that number. If you have a hole in
your roof. Do not pay some scam.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Artists thirty five hundred dollars at your doorstep to put
a tarp on your roof when the Army Corps Engineers
is doing it for free. And if you see somebody
trying to scam you out of it, if somebody claims
they're representing Blue Roof and they try to collect money
from you, you call that exact same number to report
the fraud.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So again one eight eight b l U it's Rob. Sorry, almostrewed.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I instrut is though one eight eight eight roof b
l U and you'll see at Jimmy Petronis and I've
got a link there. You can do it all right
there from the link also, but it's a fantastic service
to get a blue roof if you have damage to
your roof.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You've been listening to Florida's Chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis.
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the News. I'm
Reed Shepherd NewsRadio wfl A.
I read Shepherd NewsRadio WFLA, and this is beyond the News.
Today we're talking to Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis
about resources and services for survivors of our recent hurricanes.
Aleen and Milton. Jimmy. Now, we're kind of at the
point where a lot of people might be seeing people
walk through their neighborhoods and saying, hey, we can fix
(00:22):
that roof, or we can fix your we can fix
that door or whatever. What should people be looking out
for and what should people be doing now that they're
starting to think about how best to approach the repairs
to their house.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you for asking that question. I discourage people from
engaging in any type of solicitation what we've already seen.
I got a call yesterday where an elderly woman in
clear Water she had problems with her roof, or at
least she thought she had problems with roof. She called
a friend that she trusted to say, hey, will you
(00:57):
come and check.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Out my roof.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Before her friend could come over to inspect the roof,
a contractor showed up and the contractor says, here, no worries,
I'll take care of this.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'll work with your insurance company.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The contractor, according to the woman's testimony, and we're starting
the investigation, predated the contract, so there was so the
date on the contract would not be it would be
exempt from the position. The Florida legislature had passed to
allow people to get out of these type of contracts,
so they moved it more than ten days. So, I mean,
(01:30):
these guys they're canvassing your neighborhoods. They're trying to get
a piece of your claim. They use a product called
directional of payments. They're directing the payment away from the
policy holder. So I mean, I just tell people, if
you call your insurance company first, get that dialogue started first.
Now the insurance companies on the hook for the improvements
(01:52):
and repairs, not you trying to fight your insurance company
because you were taking advantage of by scammer.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So if somebody actually does sign something that maybe they
shouldn't be signing, is there any way out?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, So if it is a roofer, they've got ten
days from the day that they sign it to get
out of that document. So what I would err on
the side of cautions. Specifically, when if you sign something,
keep your copy of it. We're on the verge. In
the next twenty.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Four hours, we're gonna this is the first off, tell anybody,
we're going to.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Open up a portal where people can submit copies of
their documents and then we're gonna review them. And what
we're gonna do is we're gonna see a pattern of
where these guys are being bad actors. They're using funny
language in the contracts, they're doing it. And it's sad
that I'm having to do this. It's sad that we
even having this discussion. But these son of a guns
(02:48):
just have no bounds when it comes to preying on
people when they're vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And they haven't talked to the entrance company yet.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
All right, Now, the problem in a lot of cases, Jimmy,
is unlicensed contractors going through their neighborhood. Now, now, how
does somebody you know really get the difference between an
unlicensed contractor who's just simply trying to rip them off
and a genuine licensed contractor who really can help and
will do the work for a fair prices. What's that
(03:17):
difference and what should people be looking for?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Great question, So, a licensed Florida contractor on every piece
of collateral material must have their Florida license number on it.
And it's real. I did it yesterday. I looked up
somebody and there you go. You can see on dbbr's
website where they are registered. Now good, that's an extra step,
but you can do it from your phone and you
can verify that they're a licensed Florida contractor. Here's one
(03:43):
of the problems people don't realize. Let's say you do
business with an unlicensed contractor, and let's say they make
repairs to something as significant as your roof. If the
proper permits are not pulled, there's not a single insurance
company that will right or renew that policy because it
wasn't done by a licensed Florida contractor.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So you got it.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean, we saw it after Hurricane Michael, where the
neighborhoods were canvassed by these contractors that were from out
of state that weren't licensed the state of Florida. They
made repairs without pulling the necessary permits. And now when
it comes time to renew your insurance, there's not a
permit on file with the local county. So now since
there's not a permit on file, now who did the
(04:28):
work is this work of a licensed contractor, and now
the poor policy holder, the home owners left holding the
bag of having to hire somebody to come and inspect
and prove and try to own workmanship that they had
nothing to do with.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All Right, So you know, like you know, like I
live in a fifty five and over mobile home community.
I had some damage to some awnings out front. First
thing I did was call the insurance company, and I
haven't talked to anybody else. To me, that sounds like
about the best way to move forward.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Can't get hurt if you're talking.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Look, I told people I had a contractor call me
and was complaining, Well, Jimmy, you just can't be so
hard on us contractors telling people not to sign anything.
And I said, well, you know what's wrong with somebody
talking to the insurance company first before they talk to you. Well,
the insurance companies aren't responding quick enough. I said, well,
you know what, that's a problem that we need to address.
(05:21):
I said, so what did I do? He told me
the carrier that he was having problems with. I called
the carrier and I jacked him up yesterday. I said, look,
I said, these contractors want to do the work. You
need to go ahead and get that adjuster out there
so this authorization process can move forward. But again it's
a disaster. There's a reason why they cause these events, disasters.
And you got the contractors who are hungry to go
(05:43):
do work. They know that the longer they delay, that's
the less opportunity they have to pick up more jobs
to do. And so you know that's why we do
the insurance villages, the insurance villages. By gosh, if you
don't come to our insurance village, shame on you. You're
missing the best opportunity because my office is sitting on
top of the decision makers in the insurance company to
(06:05):
get your process started. We are we're the supervisor. We're
their babysitting making sure they do right. I mean inst
In the last forty eight hours, the insurance companies already
paid out over a million dollars in advanced living expense money.
That's money you go get a hotel room, or rent
an apartment or just stabilize yourself.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So we tell the carriers, if you want to participate
in our insurance village, you got to write checks on site.
And depending on type of policy you got, it depends on.
It determines on what type of money you're going to receive.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Okay, I think you sort of answered this, but let's
keep going on on that vein Jimmy, Yeah, how are
the insurance companies doing? Are they responding?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, the insurance companies are responding, but the people have
to show up and then Look, you can call your
insurance company, you can email. The insurance companies actually have
been leveraging technology in the last storm, last couple of storms,
better than ever before, whether it be push notifications, using
smart apps, phone calls, emails. Okay, so your insurance company
(07:07):
may have engaged you already. You may not realize that
because you may have thought the email was spam. I mean,
my home was not in the threat of this storm.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I picture I got.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Five emails from my carrier trying to just keep me
prepared if I needed to know something. So, I mean,
the carriers are trying, but the policyholder has to go.
I tell people all the time, Look, there's good contractors,
there's bad contractors, there's good there's good insurance companies, there's
bad insurance companies. But you've got good policy holders, you've
got bad policy holders. Some people, you know, are overwhelmed.
(07:38):
They don't think people buy a home, some build a home,
very few rebuild a home. So rebuilding a home is
it's definitely a challenging undertaking. And this is why we
do the insurance Village to force this face to face engagement,
which is just it's just a more humanitarian way to
help people put their life back together.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, I've got I've got like four of those villages
opening this week, some I think you of today in
the Tampa Bay area, Lakeland, Plants City.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
All of all of them, Yeah, all of them are
open right now.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
We opened up our last one in Plant City yesterday,
and so the Bradington Village and the Plant City Village
are the ones that are getting the most traffic right now.
And so you know what we did with every storm,
We open up the villages. You know, we let them
run for a few days and then we demobilize them
and then we move them around. Because different people in
(08:30):
different parts of the communities, you know, are affected differently,
so we try to be sensitive to people's traveling habits.
But but right now, the locations that we picked are
the ones that had electricity. They were a safe place
because it's nice when you're overwhelmed to sent air condition.
We do this most times, we do it in a
parking lot.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Okay, Jimmy, I know you're busy, but is there anything
else you want to get out there? Anything else of
people that you feel people need to know.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I'm getting better at explaining this one. So Operation
Blue Roof has been initiated by the Army Corps Engineers.
That's one eight eight eight Roof blue b l U.
That is a totally free service by the Army Corps
Engineers to have a contractor come out and put a
(09:15):
blue tarp on the roof of your house at no
expense to you, even if you have insurance.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So call that number. If you have a hole in
your roof. Do not pay some scam.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Artists thirty five hundred dollars at your doorstep to put
a tarp on your roof when the Army Corps Engineers
is doing it for free. And if you see somebody
trying to scam you out of it, if somebody claims
they're representing Blue Roof and they try to collect money
from you, you call that exact same number to report
the fraud.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So again one eight eight b l U it's Rob. Sorry, almostrewed.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I instrut is though one eight eight eight roof b
l U and you'll see at Jimmy Petronis and I've
got a link there. You can do it all right
there from the link also, but it's a fantastic service
to get a blue roof if you have damage to
your roof.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You've been listening to Florida's Chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis.
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the News. I'm
Reed Shepherd NewsRadio wfl A.
Popular Podcasts
Good Game with Sarah Spain
Good Game is your one-stop shop for the biggest stories in women’s sports. Every day, host Sarah Spain gives you the stories, stakes, stars and stats to keep up with your favorite women’s teams, leagues and athletes. Through thoughtful insight, witty banter, and an all around good time, Sarah and friends break down the latest news, talk about the games you can’t miss, and debate the issues of the day. Don’t miss interviews with the people of the moment, whether they be athletes, coaches, reporters, or celebrity fans.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.