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Article · Sep 3, 2026 · 11 min read
Florida Multifamily Liability: The Coverage Gaps Sitting Above the Primary Layer
Coverage gaps in Florida habitational programs are concentrated in the layer that owners benchmark least. On this week's Data Pulse, Katie Dowson and Grace Schmidt took Advocate placement data into the Florida multifamily liability market and found that the state's pricing differential against the rest of the country sits almost entirely above the primary layer, and that close to half the market is written outside the admitted system. The method was a layer by layer comparison of Florida against national placements, measured in rate on line, defined as premium per $100 of coverage. That unit allows large and small policies to be compared directly. The results ran in three parts: property and casualty pricing in Florida have moved in opposite directions for four consecutive years, the Florida premium is an excess layer phenomenon rather than a primary one, and carrier level rate comparisons are unreliable without layer mix alongside them. The framing number was not a Florida number. Commercial premiums rose for 33 consecutive quarters before the run ended in the first quarter of 2026. Eight years and change of rates moving in one direction, and then a turn. That turn is the story most trade coverage has run this year. Taken into Florida multifamily, the data shows that half of the coverage never received the decrease, and it is the half owners spend the least time on.
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Article · Aug 21, 2026 · 11 min read
Price Benchmarking California Property | Data Pulse
Over the trailing 12 months, the most expensive carrier writing California multifamily property was the state's insurer of last resort. The California FAIR Plan averaged 62.8 cents of premium per $100 of coverage, roughly three times Lloyd's at 20.8 cents, in a segment where private capital was available and actively deploying. That finding opens Data Pulse, a new weekly price benchmarking segment on The Advocate Insurance Desk, hosted by Katie Dowson and Grace Schmidt.
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Article · Aug 14, 2026 · 9 min read
Insurance Automation That Knows Where to Stop: Inside ALKEME's AI Playbook
Most insurance automation conversations stall at one of two extremes: none of it is real yet, or all of it is about to replace everybody. On this episode of The Advocate Insurance Desk, hosts Katie Dowson and Grace Schmidt talk with somebody who has actually shipped AI inside a working agency rather than sold it from the vendor side. Ryan Deeds, Head of AI at ALKEME Insurance, has automated a live piece of the renewal process, moved an entire band of small accounts onto an automated servicing track, and drawn a deliberate line where the software stops and a person picks up the phone. The interesting question, as Dowson framed it at the top of the episode, is not what you can automate. It is where you choose not to.
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