Florida CFO: Tornado Recovery? Don't Sign That Document!

Jimmy Patronis, Florida CFO, joined Preston to offer sage advice to those in the recovery phase after last week's storm, plus some "to dos" for the upcoming hurricane season. 

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
For the five and sixtieth occasion,we turn the page on the rundown and
get to our number three of theMorning Show with Preston Scott. I'm Preston.
He is Grant Allen. It isThursday, May sixteenth, and it's
great to be with you this morning, and I am honored to have with
us once again Florida's Chief Financial OfficerCFO. Jimmy patronis, how are you,

(00:35):
sir? Heck, I'm honored tobe with y'all. Thank you for
having me. I warmly received youremail and offer to try to guide those
listening through the process of recovery,not get scammed, not get taken advantage
of. Jimmy, it strikes methat a tornado is kind of like a

(00:58):
rifle versus a hurricane, which iskind of like a shotgun. But the
damage left behind, regardless is alwaysdevastation. And what are some things that
you can advise our listeners in thisarea impacted by these storms that might be
helpful to them? The best,the best thing I can tell in Preston
is don't sign anything. A lotof your listeners have been approached by very

(01:23):
aggressive tactics by contractors and tree tremorswith when it comes to tree tremors,
if you've got a tree down inyour yard, that is going to be
your responsibility to get removed. Now, if the tree is on top of
your house, that will be aresponsibility of your insurance carrier. So you

(01:45):
know, when when you've got adamage to your house created by the tree
does the storm's that's where where yourinsurance company will come and take care of
it. The contracted tree tremors bythe insurance companies. Now you can say,
hey, I've got other trees here, can you take care of them?
The same time, they will treatthat as a separate contract. But
these guys that come fly by night, that come and knock on your door,

(02:07):
that want to offer to put atarf on your roof if you'll sign
something, those guys are now goingto take over your insurance claim. And
unfortunately they will suck up the resourcesthat really should be going to the repair
of your house, that should begoing to use. They will take it
and use it for them. SoI just you know, if it sounds

(02:28):
too good to be true, pleasedon't take the babe. What what are
the I guess the options? Isit? First call to the insurance company
is it somewhere else? So whatI tell people all the time, if
your first phone call is either tomy office at one eight seven seven,
my FLCFO, your insurance agent,or your carrier, there's zero chance of

(02:53):
you getting scammed. Okay, youknow what was what's great about the tornadoes?
We saw it also, I tellyou because the size of the storm
was manageable. The carriers have theabilities so that one of the carriers I
was talking to this earlier this week, when a storm hits, they've got
the ability to physically pick up thephone and talk to ten thousand people with

(03:15):
a twenty four hour period. Wherethe carrier will call, they will say
you know, I'm x y Zinsurance company you're in and they track it
via via storm weather spikes. Soyou know, if you live along blairstone
and your carrier, you probably gotoutreach from carry your carrier because along Blairstone
there was such a devastated path.It'll either text or email a phone call.

(03:38):
So you know, I know,sometimes it sounds a little unorthodox that
your insurance company is trying to callyou, But where the insurance company mentality
is guiden Now is be proactive,reach out, touch to the policyholder.
Let the policy holder we're here tofile a claim. When you file acclaim
with that policitive, that carrier overthe phone, it's not costing anything.

(03:59):
It's getting the ball started. You'renot obligating yourself to anything. But I
would always err on the side ofcaution. If you've got the ability to
jump in line as quick as youcan and get a claim started, take
it. I want to get yourmoney as soon as possible. If if
someone's already signed and now they're listeningto you and they're concerned, what recourses

(04:20):
do they have? So it dependson what you signed. You can call
again, call our office at oneeight seven seven my FLCFO, or you
call your agent. One thing wedid in this most recent legislative session,
but it doesn't kick in till Julyone, is we put a ten day

(04:40):
right of recision period in it.What we saw with Hurricane Idelia, and
I hate getting in the middle ofcontract between adults, but what we have
with Idelia. I'll give you oneexample. We had a man in Perry.
He had no damage to the roof. He was ninety years old.
He had signed up with four differentroofing contractors because they were so aggressive.

(05:01):
So then are our depths, ourlaw enforcement officers. They went out,
they tracked down those those contractors andgo, really, is this what you
really really want to do? Andwe got all four of them torn up
voluntarily by the contractors. But youknow, I mean sometimes unless we know
about it, we can't help you. So we've got our guys. I

(05:24):
mean, literally minutes after the storm, we put our defast team, that's
our our law enforcement officers. Wehit them out in the street. I
told them, I said, guys, cruise the neighborhoods with your lights on,
no sirens, just like them.I want people to see that you're
there. But the bad guys willkeep on moving if they see law enforcement
there because they know better. Twodecades of doing morning drive radio differently doing

(05:46):
it his way like old Blue Eyes, except he has a little more hair.
The Morning Show with Preston Scott makingtime in his very busy schedule to
share some helpful tips to those ofyou impacted by the tornado outbreak nearly a
week ago. The devastation. You'veheard the numbers more more power lines snapped

(06:14):
in half, poles snapped in halfthan the last three to four hurricanes combined,
which tells you something about the intensityof the storm. Mister Cfo,
let's talk about storm season and someof the best practices, not so much
for battening down the hatch, butfor preparing for having to deal with the

(06:34):
aftermath of a storm from paperwork anddocuments and so forth. Yeah, I'd
say we're a smartphone society. Now, preston and tell people use your smartphone.
And you know, unfortunately Tallahassee hasbeen devastated, but there's a lot
of parts Tallahassee in the northern partthat didn't have the type of storm activity.

(06:54):
But take your phone. Take takea walking talking video of the outside
of your house. Give two minutesto walk around the outside of your house
and just say, hey, today'sdate. You know, this is what
time it is, and you canand just show that your house has no
trees on it, okay, andthat all your eaves and your roofs and
good and just good shape. Don'tclimb up on the roof, just the

(07:15):
outer edge of your house. Andsome photos do the same thing inside and
kind of take a little bit ofan inventory showing you know, your TVs
you're all covering your furniture. Becausewhen you have a storm and it's not
if it's when it's going to happen, okay, you're gonna have to file
a clean Whatever you have got that'sphotographic evidence, I would email it to

(07:36):
yourself, so it's in a virtualplace. It's in the cloud, and
it's always there. So when andif you do have damage, now an
adjuster's gonna come to your house saying, hey, this was how my house
looked on May sixteenth of twenty twentyfour, And so it makes it more
black and white, more cut anddry, because now you go back and
you've got a tree fall in yourhouse, it becomes pretty obvious. Yeah,

(07:58):
this this tree didn't exist on Maysixteenth, But here we are on
August twelfth, and the tree isthere. So that's that's one thing that's
really easy to do. The others, you know, take pictures of your
insurance documents and do the same thing, just email them to yourself. But
like the beauty of technology now islike we saw with Idelia, we saw
with the tornadoes, is the carriersare leveraging that technology to reach out to

(08:22):
those that, like I said,and this one carrier was talking to where
the winds spiked over one hundred milesper hour. I mean, those folks
got calls immediately. To the Carrier'sattitude is I would rather get to you
first than the bad guys. Sothey want to start that claims process as
soon as possible. Yeah, becauseFlorida has unfortunately, because we have more

(08:43):
than more than most people believe thenumber of tornadoes that hit this state.
In fact, I saw somewhere Jimmythat Florida ranks number one and most tornadoes
every year annually. But that said, we've learned some painful lessons over the
years through hurricanes and all that abouthow just rotten some people can be.
Yeah, and that's why you know, we keep on every year that I've

(09:05):
been in office, We've kept onchipping away at the bad guys with walls.
So like some of there's there's goodpublic adjusters, and there's some that
are they're like locusts, they're sobad. And so like, we successfully
last year put a thirty day writerdecision on a public adjuster. But what
I also put in there is,you know, you got thirty days from

(09:28):
the time of the disaster, andmost people are gonna file acclaim. You
would think within ten days they gotdamage, they're going to contact their carrier
or their carrier's going to contact themwith them first ten days. So my
attitude was, Okay, carriers,here's thirty days for you to get your
act together. If you don't getyour act, goether when that first thirty
days, then you know what,We're going to cut the dogs loose,

(09:48):
okay, and they're going to goout and take over these claims. So
the carriers there is a way toget the carrier's attention. But it was
also telling the public adjusters. Look, if you're noble in what you're doing
your good people, fine, butif you're one of these predators, we're
going to give that homeowner up tothirty days to get their wherewithal and fire
your tail. Nice. Always appreciateyour time, Jimmy, and I appreciate

(10:13):
all you're doing on behalf of thecitizenry of this great state. Thank you,
well, i'd say it radios,it's the gifts during disasters. Thank
you for what y'all do. Youmay not hear it enough, but you're
just like a first responder because you'resitting there behind the microphone during the worst
weather of anybody. So God blessy'all. Preston, thanks for having me
this morning. I appreciate it.Sir Jimmy Patrona's Florida CFO with us some

(10:37):
brilliant tips. Just walk around yourhouse in and out with your phone,
narrate what you have, document itscondition, take some pictures, and then
email all of that to yourself.You will be so grateful. Do it
sooner versus later seventeen minutes past thehour