CopyCited 2 times | Published | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal | 1997 Fla. App. LEXIS 2137, 1997 WL 115318
...Redner and Michael H. Davidson, for appellee. Before JORGENSON, FLETCHER and SHEVIN, JJ. SHEVIN, Judge. Capital National Financial Corporation, a premium finance company, appeals a final order of the Department of Insurance ruling that Capital violated section 627.8405(1), Florida Statutes (1993). We reverse. The Department issued a notice of intent not to renew Capital's license for violation of section 627.8405(1)....
...Capital does not advance the funds or charge a fee for collecting this payment. The customer executes a separate billing disclosure form which describes Capital's collection of the costs. Following a hearing on stipulated facts, the hearing officer concluded that Capital had not violated section 627.8405(1)....
...mobile memberships. It is acting merely as a collection agent. The credit provided comes either from the insurance agent or the automobile club." The Insurance Commissioner accepted the Department's exceptions and concluded that Capital had violated section 627.8405....
...The Commissioner defined the verb "finance" as "to conduct the finances of" or to "engage in, or procure money for financial operations," and defined the noun "finance" as "management of monetary affairs, especially those involving large sums or investment funds." [1] Section 627.8405(1) prohibits premium finance companies from providing financing for the cost of an automobile club membership....
...s automobile club memberships at the same time they are obtaining automobile insurance coverage without the consumer's knowledge or informed consent: the premium finance company does not sell the membership to the consumer. Accordingly, we hold that section 627.8405(1) prohibits the advancement of, rather than the mere collection of, the cost of an automobile club membership....
...us or unauthorized. But equally binding upon this court is the rule that `highly regulatory and penal laws ought not to be extended by construction.'" Florida Indus. Comm'n v. Manpower, Inc. of Miami,
91 So.2d 197, 199 (Fla.1956) (citation omitted). Section
627.8405 is a penal statute and therefore must be strictly construed: among other penalties, the violation of this section may subject a premium finance company to non-renewal of its license....
...to provide with necessary funds in order to achieve a desired end. 3. to sell on credit."). These definitions do not limit the term to the charging of interest for borrowing money. [2] The Department has provided this court with legislative history which states that section
627.8405 was enacted to prevent "sliding." See §
626.9541(1)(z), Fla.Stat....
CopyPublished | District Court, M.D. Florida | 2012 WL 2339702, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84507
...the underwriters violated the general line law’s reporting requirements. The alleged violations of the surplus line law also supposedly render each policy “unregulated.” Hence (Lemy and Hill reason) Direct General and the underwriters violated Section 627.8405, which bars the sale of a finance agreement for “any product not regulated under [the] insurance code.” The complaint comprises ten counts, although several of them merely assert a remedy....
...Lemy and Hill also claim that each policy implicitly incorporates the entire insurance code and that each of the insurers’ alleged statutory violations therefore equals a breach of contract (count IV) and a breach of the duty to act in good faith (count V). For Direct General and the underwriters’ alleged violation of Section 627.8405 (count I), Lemy and Hill seek statutory damages....
...render a contract unenforceable by a resident of the state”). The policy remains “regulated” by Section
624.155 and the rest of the insurance code. Lemy and Hill contend that each policy nevertheless counts as not regulated for the purpose of Section
627.8405 because the rental car and legal cost coverage in each policy is not insurance....
...purpose, the need for a rental car after an accident qualifies as “incidental” to the ownership of a vehicle as well. Lemy and Hill fail to show that even a piece of either policy fails to qualify as insurance regulated by the insurance code. * Section 627.8405 prohibits the financing not only of a “product not regulated [by] th[e] insurance code” but also of “a membership in an automobile club.” Lemy and Hill argue (this is the one small exception mentioned earlier) that each polic...
...expense ... incidental to ownership, maintenance, or use of [a] vehicle.” In fact, if an automobile club provides indemnity of the sort provided in each policy, the club sells insurance rather than an “automobile club membership” as defined in Section 627.8405....
...476 , 614 S.E.2d 47 , 48^49 (2005) (holding that an “auto membership” offering indemnity for legal service, ambulance service, and roadside service arising from an automobile emergency constitutes insurance); 30 Fla. Jur. 2d Insurance § 3. That “Section 627.8405 is a penal statute and therefore must be strictly construed,” Capital Nat’l Fin....
...The complaint asserts that the insurers and the policy violate many sections of Florida’s insurance code. Using public documents and the two policies, the insurers disprove most of the complaint’s assertions. The complaint claims that the underwriters and Direct General violated Section 627.8405....
...pproval requirement in Section
627.410. The new law applies to each action begun after May 15, 2009. 2009 Fla. Sess. Law Serv. Ch. 2009-166, see. 7 (West). Although this action began in December, 2008, the first complaint alleged only a violation of Section
627.8405, the section barring some financing agreements....
...sold Lemy and Hill a product of value. Hence the policy is valid, no breach occurred, and the insurers harbor no unjust enrichment. Lemy and Hill cannot establish that the underwriters and Direct General sold either finance agreement in violation of Section 627.8405....
...motor vehicle” without thereby becoming an insurer subject to the insurance code. Lemy and Hill argue that Section
624.124 exempts the legal cost coverage in each policy from regulation under the insurance code. As Lemy and Hill state elsewhere, "Section
627.8405, however, mentions insurance 'products not regulated under the provisions of the code.” (emphasis added by Lemy and Hill) Section
624.124 exempts a person from the insurance code (most prominently, the code’s licensing requiremen...
CopyPublished | District Court, M.D. Florida | 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114337, 2012 WL 3326342
...sale of a surplus line; Sections
627.062 and
627.0651, which regulate a general line policy’s price; Section
627.410, which requires a general line insurer to report policy information to the Office of Insurance Regulation (“the Office”); and Section
627.8405, which prohibits the financing of an automobile club membership or of a product “not regulated” by the insurance code....
...writers qualify as an eligible surplus line insurer; that only immaterial infractions of Sections
626.916(l)(a) and
626.924 occurred; that none of Chapter 627, which regulates general line insurance, applies to the insurers; and that no violation of Section
627.8405 occurred because the insurance code regulates the policy and because the policy is not an automobile club membership....
