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CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: YOUR INSIGHT
Northeast Florida jobless claims, layoffs increase
Don’t expect virus-impact relief from insurance Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
Harte Hanks, Enterprise Holdings, Renaissance St. Augustine Resort and Sheraton Jacksonville cutting jobs.
Daily Record Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
BY MARK BASCH CONTRIBUTING WRITER
JACKSONVILLE
Special to the Daily Record
Wellhouse Co. Chief Operating Officer Richard Stein Jr., left, and his father, Rick, who founded the independent insurance brokerage firm in 2018.
Independent insurance broker Wellhouse is advising clients to make claims, but not to anticipate any coverage. BY MAX MARBUT ASSOCIATE EDITOR
If business owners are looking for compensation for loss of business because of the COVID-19 shutdown and social distancing mandates, they shouldn’t expect
relief from their insurance carrier. “Most – 999 out of 1,000 – insurance policies have an infectious disease exclusion,” said Richard Stein Jr., chief operating officer of Wellhouse Co. Wellhouse is an independent insurance brokerage firm founded in Jacksonville in 2018 by Stein’s father, Rick Stein. “We’ve had a lot of conversations with clients. We’re advising them to file claims, but to anticipate there won’t be any relief,” Richard Stein said.
KEEPING CLOSE – FROM A DISTANCE On May 4, the state began a phased reopening of some businesses shut down to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The Daily Record is reporting on small businesses as they confront the challenges of social distancing and financial hardships brought on by the pandemic and its aftermath.
After dropping the previous two weeks, new claims for unemployment insurance by Floridians rose again while several Northeast Florida businesses filed notices of layoffs. The number of new unemployment claims in Florida rose to 221,905 in the week ending May 9, from 174,860 the previous week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Weekly claims by Floridians are down from the peak of 506,670 in the week ended April 18, but claims have averaged nearly 250,000 a week for the past eight weeks. In the first 11 weeks of 2020, before large numbers of businesses shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, weekly claims averaged about 5,500. More Northeast Florida businesses are filing notices under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of permanent and temporary layoffs, as the impact of the pandemic affects operations. The most recent added to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s WARN website include Harte Hanks Direct Marketing/Jacksonville LLC, which said it is closing its facility at 7498 Fullerton St. The closure will result in the permanent loss of 63 jobs beginning June 30, Harte Hanks said in its WARN letter. Also this week, a notification by rental car company Enterprise Holdings said it is cutting 164
SEE WELLHOUSE, PAGE 2
SEE JOBS, PAGE 2
New Rowe’s supermarket opens Rowe’s IGA Supermarkets opened May 12 in Commonwealth Shopping Center. Owner Rob Rowe said he invested more than $3 million so far in renovating the store at 1012 Edgewood Ave. N. in the Paxon area of Northwest Jacksonville. Rowe said the store will operate 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily until the coronavirus pandemic eases. He estimates about 90 employees staffed the store the first day. Rowe’s brought groceries back to an area without a full-line supermarket since April 2018 when Harveys Supermarket closed in the space.
VOLUME 107, NO. 128 • ONE SECTION