Wind Mitigation public hearing at the Florida DOIR on December 21, 2009.

[Nick Gromicko]

On December 21st once again the OIR (Office of Insurance Regulations) and special interest groups are attempting to make certain changes to the OIR-B1-1802 form (Uniform Wind Mitigation Form) during a hearing at 9:00 a.m. at 116 Larson Building, 200 East Gaines Street, Tallahassee, Florida. Certain interests have moved to intercept and preempt any and all required mitigation Inspections from the insurance companies and have the business driven directly to them. This will violate Florida citizen of their right to choose the qualified inspector of there choice.

I ask that you all to make the effort to be present at this public hearing. Just as we showed out by the hundreds for the recent home inspector licensing stakeholders meetings in Florida, we need to also attend this meeting. There is strength in numbers.

[Gary Farnsworth]

Shall we change the give-a-way day?

[Nick Gromicko]

http://www.nachi.org/doir-2009.htm

[Jose F. Uz]

What’s been going on for a year now is simple, once the MSFH funding was exhausted in June 2008 the WCE's went out on a mission to monopolize the private market given there new found millions courtesy of our tax dollars. The approach was basically to have the form changed to benefit them while putting unfair restriction on all other professional in our State.

I spearheaded a movement last December with the FES (Fl engineering society) the Florida *** of consulting engineers, several firms involved in the inspection market which are also Nachi members and several attorneys. The result was that everything was put on hold, and the OIR asked us to submit proposed forms and we did, along with ideas on proper credentials and acceptable ways to enforce the existing laws to ensure that those bad and fraudulent inspectors would be prosecuted. Obviously they hang there hats on the amount of faulty bad inspections in the market and use that excuse to monopolize and infringe on our constitutional right to work rather than just enforce the laws that are already in place.

All of our ideas and proposals went on death ears, it is obvious to us that the idea was to make us believe we were actually going to play a roll in some fashion and our ideas would be respectfully considered and discussed, none of this happened.

In the mean time for those who may not be aware, the WCE's have taken a different approach. They have gone directly to the underwriters and lobbied using whatever scare tactics and unjustly obtain influence and financial strength obtained courtesy of MSFH. The result is that now more and more of the underwriters in Florida are giving these WCE firms exclusive rights to inspect and therefore discriminating upon those which are allowed by law to perform these inspections. Furthermore; they get away with this unethical manner of conducting business by stating that the insurance company will pay for the inspection so therefore since its there money they get to choose the inspector. This is wrong, because for one, if anyone thinks that the cost of the inspection is not going to be built into the premium and thus the homeowner ultimately is going to pay for it regardless I have a bridge to sell them. Besides the infringement on our constitutional and legal rights as well as the violation of anti-trust laws to protect industry from this kind of behavior which are being violated, it is also a conflict of interest since the purpose of the inspection is for the issuance of credits or deductions and being that the inspector is a direct contractor of and works for the entity that is supposed to give those discounts to the insured the inherited implications are of a conflict.

Then you have a $60,000,000 contract that Citizens a State subsidized entity with tax dollars gave behind closed doors in back room negotiations without a competitive bidding process to one single firm which is entrusted to check up on and police there competitors; does this sound right? Will they be motivated to biased review? Who is checking the inspections they perform? Are they perfect? Not according to MSFH which there own audits show a spotty track record when this entity was performing inspections for them. If it smells bad to you, it probably is.

This is just the tip of the ice berg, the language on this proposed form that still allows the MSFH inspectors to sign is ridiculous, there is no MSFH anymore. By law the program expired on June 30, 2009; so who are they accountable to? Who regulates them? the language that states "other qualified entity" was not put there for Inter Nachi, it is designed so that the WCE's could comfortably recruit unqualified non-licensed people so they can fulfill the massive volume of work they are expecting since Nachi certified inspectors won't work for $50.00, and it is not easy and most of the time impossible to have a licensed professional work for that as well. This is an unfair competitive advantage too.

I will be there on the 21st, I strongly advise anyone and everyone to join me in a show of force to try to stop this atrocity.

Regards to all,

Jose’ F. Uz, Ph.D., CRC, CPO, CHI, CHC, M-NFPA, FHA INSP., Fellow of the ABI and Proud member of InterNachi
President
Caribbean RealtySupport Services, Inc.
Toll Free 866-261-2242
Serving 15 Florida Counties
Inspections, Surveys & Engineering Services

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent their government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

Thomas Jefferson 1787

[Brian C. Hoagland]

Has boiled down to low pay for huge liability. How exactly do you fill out the form? OIR is not about to tell anyone, engineers have been consulted the insurance industry has had it's input, the consumer has been thrown to the sharks. The new form REQUIRES the specific date of permit or installation. This is good as it eliminates any fraud....but, where does it leave the purchaser of a short sale of an older structure say circa 1992 construction with an obviously replaced roof. There is no room for expertise built into this form. Further, are we expected to apply code compliance with respect to tie downs and roof sheathing and nailing and shutter / wind born debris protection. Seems as though the codes apply in some areas of the form then get disregarded in others. The minimum code for roof sheathing on 24" centers is 19/32" in all areas with wind speeds over 100 MPH. And yet, the form is full of fastening patterns for 7/16". How many catagories of protection are on the form? How many catagories are there in the code? It is either code compliant for that windspeed and expected load or not. Why does the form not reflect the appropriate information? The my safe florida program allowed the interpretation of the OIR form 1802 to be left open to the WCE's who continually changed the instructions to the inspectors in their employ. There has never been any state entity who has decreed the proper manner to complete the 1802 with respect to the severity of diversion from perfection of code compliance. Invisible areas of constuction are assumed to be compliant if other visible areas are found to be with no disclaimers. Inspectors are signing off that EVERY strap was properly nailed. I think we have all been duped. MSFH stipulated that straps OVER 1&1/2" from truss ends should be resecured, straps are manufactured to be installed 1/8" or less from truss ends. No rules have been established, the form is left open to interpretation and is subjective. God bless us one and all.

[Jose F. Uz]

Originally Posted by bhoagland

Has boiled down to low pay for huge liability. How exactly do you fill out the form? OIR is not about to tell anyone, engineers have been consulted the insurance industry has had it's input, the consumer has been thrown to the sharks. The new form REQUIRES the specific date of permit or installation. This is good as it eliminates any fraud....but, where does it leave the purchaser of a short sale of an older structure say circa 1992 construction with an obviously replaced roof. There is no room for expertise built into this form. Further, are we expected to apply code compliance with respect to tie downs and roof sheathing and nailing and shutter / wind born debris protection. Seems as though the codes apply in some areas of the form then get disregarded in others. The minimum code for roof sheathing on 24" centers is 19/32" in all areas with wind speeds over 100 MPH. And yet, the form is full of fastening patterns for 7/16". How many catagories of protection are on the form? How many catagories are there in the code? It is either code compliant for that windspeed and expected load or not. Why does the form not reflect the appropriate information? The my safe florida program allowed the interpretation of the OIR form 1802 to be left open to the WCE's who continually changed the instructions to the inspectors in their employ. There has never been any state entity who has decreed the proper manner to complete the 1802 with respect to the severity of diversion from perfection of code compliance. Invisible areas of constuction are assumed to be compliant if other visible areas are found to be with no disclaimers. Inspectors are signing off that EVERY strap was properly nailed. I think we have all been duped. MSFH stipulated that straps OVER 1&1/2" from truss ends should be resecured, straps are manufactured to be installed 1/8" or less from truss ends. No rules have been established, the form is left open to interpretation and is subjective. God bless us one and all.

I can understand the frustration with this issue, I can tell you that engineers for the most part do not agree with a lot of the technical questions on the form nor the positions of the MSFH or WCE's. Believe it or not there is more support from engineers against many of these issues than you imagine. There is a contractor in your area Melbourne that has attended several of my classes, you might know him (Tim Warr) he can tell you that with the proper training you can answer these questions correctly. Just look at the massive training program InterNachi has put together for this very issue. I won't be alone on the 21st, there are a couple of prominent engineers that are also involved in government that will be there to challenge the OIR and WCE's. It's going to be good.

Remeber you can work for them for gross $50 or work for yourself for $150 or better, what makes them better than you? I know, they are better than all of us the moment we allow them to be.

Hope you go and stand by us, stand up and show how tiered we are of being disregarded.

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent their government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

Thomas Jefferson 1787


Jose'

[Brian C. Hoagland]

The point I intended to make is that OIR, the insurance companies and the consultants which have previously worked on the MSFH program have not to this point defined the parameters within which the form is to be filled out with respect to certain issues.

What happens is that without a concensus and official opinion the form is "interpreted" and the answers are subjective to the opinion of the inspector or his employer. The best example of this would be the distance from the truss end to the strap embedment point in the foundation. I could easily make a case that offset straps which alternated 2" from the truss end but were wrapped over and secured with three nails on the opposite side but off on one truss to the right and the next to the left are just as strong as when they are placed dead on balls on center,(a technical description from the movie "MY COUSIN VINNIE") Due to the diaphram action of the roof sheathing.

[Jose F. Uz]

Can't argue with you my friend, there are many tech. issues that are subjective and questioned on non-accessible and non-visible areas but they seem to put alot of trust on 1 specific metal detector "Zircon". Design plays a big roll and in some cases the engineer may have very well calculated that due to the span a clip may have as much uplift resistance as a wrap to begin with.

Good point.

Jose'

[ddipuglia]

Originally Posted by juz

can't argue with you my friend, there are many tech. Issues that are subjective and questioned on non-accessible and non-visible areas but they seem to put alot of trust on 1 specific metal detector "zircon". Design plays a big roll and in some cases the engineer may have very well calculated that due to the span a clip may have as much uplift resistance as a wrap to begin with.

Good point.

Jose'

im with you all the way j uz , i will be there with you in tally on the 21st to fight for what is fair and equal.thank you for all your efforts and dont get discouraged .

[Jose F. Uz]

Thank you for your support !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Brian S. Cesare]

I plan on going!
Anyone else going from the tampabay area?

[Jose F. Uz]

Originally Posted by bcesare

I plan on going!
Anyone else going from the tampabay area?

I believe Mr. Tim Gleason of Gleason Inspections is from your parts and he said he was.

Jose

[Steve Taylor]

I will be there. If anyone wants to get together for drinks and/or dinner on Sunday night to formulate talking points for the hearing, let me know.

Steve Taylor
Taylor Inspection Services, Inc.
904-206-0370
www.taylorinspectionservices.com