Florida House Bill 645, effective July 1, 2012, provides that proprietary business information provided to the Office of Insurance Regulation by a title insurance agency or insurer is confidential and exempt from public records requirements.  The exemption applies until such information is otherwise publicly available or is no longer treated by the title insurance agency or insurer as proprietary business information.

"Proprietary business information" is defined as information that:

• is owned or controlled by a title insurance agency or insurer requesting confidentiality under this section;
• is intended to be and is treated by the title insurance agency or insurer as private in that the disclosure of the information would cause harm to the business operations of the title insurance agency or insurer;
• has not been publicly disclosed unless disclosed pursuant to a statutory provision, an order of a court or administrative body, or a private agreement, providing that the information may be released to the public; and
• concerns business plans, internal auditing controls and reports of internal auditors, reports of external auditors for privately held companies, trade secrets as defined in s. 688.002, F.S., or financial information, including, but not limited to, revenue data, loss expense data, gross receipts, taxes paid, capital investment, customer identification, and employee wages.

Unless the legislatures acts by October 2, 2017, the exemption will be automatically repealed.