Court upholds Allstate suspension

TALLAHASSEE — The First District Court of appeal Wednesday said no to Allstate’s request to rehear the insurance giant’s bid to overturn the state-imposed suspension of its license to write new business in Florida.

The ban, reimposed Wednesday, covers all lines, and stems from the Office of Insurance Regulation’s subpoena of documents involving Allstate’s homeowners insurance business. Allstate, however, was expected to comply with the order and certify that it has produced all the requested documents, which would lift the suspension according to OIR.

“Were it not for that order (of suspension), we do not believe that we would have the documents available for our ongoing investigation,” Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said. ”We now have received hundreds of thousands of documents that Allstate had not previously produced.”

The suspension was put in place Jan. 17 after the commissioner abruptly halted a Jan. 15 hearing that was to look into the Allstate’s  reinsurance program, its relationships with risk modeling companies, insurance rating organizations and insurance trade associations.

Allstate appealed the suspension to the DCA, arguing that McCarty  commissioner had exceeded his authority. The court stayed the suspension until it could consider the issue.

On April 4, three DCA judges unanimously upheld McCarty, setting the stage for Allstate to request a rehearing. failure to adequately comply at the Jan. 15 hearing.

The suspension does not affect renewing policies or customers who were in the process of securing a policy when the DCA’s opinion came down.