Posted on 01/26/2022 10:11:23 AM PST by Jacquerie
Florida legislators are taking another crack at trying to blunt the growth of the state-created Citizens Property Insurance by targeting snowbirds as well as the agents who sell policies from the insurer of last resort.
The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee Tuesday unanimously approved SB 186 without debate. The bill would also potentially subject Citizens' customers to higher surcharges if the large carrier is hit with huge losses associated with hurricanes.
Under the Senate bill it would become harder for seasonal residents and visitors to maintain Citizens insurance coverage if they are using it for vacation homes that are not their primary residences.
“This ensures that the benefits of you and I subsidizing policyholders goes to people that actually live primarily in Florida and not out-of-state tourists,” said Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican and sponsor of the legislation, who noted that one-third of Citizens customers were not covering their main residence.
Despite Brandes’ suggestion, Florida taxpayers are not currently subsidizing Citizens, but they have in the past including in the aftermath of eight hurricanes slamming the state in 2004 and 2005.
The size of Citizens is worrisome to the state’s powerful insurance industry. If the carrier can’t pay off its claims, it could ultimately result in surcharges being placed on both Citizens customers as well as on all sorts of other insurance policies held by other Floridians, including auto insurance. Critics have called this a “hurricane tax.”
There are nearly 760,000 policyholders in Citizens — many of them living in South Florida and near the coast — and top officials with the insurer have warned they continue to grow amid problems with other Florida insurers. Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier last fall called the situation “dire” and said homeowners in Florida were likely to see their rates go up.
(Excerpt) Read more at floridapolitics.com ...
I spent a week in the Keys in December. I was wondering how they obtained hurricane insurance or could afford it.
Hurricane related flooding and wind damage are strange critters; the rules, limits and premiums change almost every year.
When working with a FL realtor, among the initial questions should be, “In what flood zone is this property?”
We were never on Citizens, insured through another company, but again not one of the biggies (Allstate, etc) since they don’t cover homes in our ZIP code. Insurance isn’t as bad as the DFW area with its tornados and hail storms.
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