Citizens Property Insurance Core, the state-supported insurance group, was created as somewhat of a last resort for homeowners and a measuring stick for the health of the private insurance market.
During a special session last month, lawmakers passed some insurance changes, including trying to reduce litigation and help steer policies out of Citizens and into the private market.
That’s because as more private insurers have dropped customers and raised their rates, the number of policies Citizens Property Insurance Core has issued has doubled over the last two years.
Citizens Property Insurance Core issued 19,000 policies last month alone.
The insurance company had issued more than 1.4 million policies as of Dec. 30. That’s up from more than 759,000 issued by the end of 2021.
Mark Friedlander, a spokesperson for Insurance Information Institute, explained how steering policies from Citizens into the private market would work
“When you get a renewal bill from Citizens, you will be required to get quotes from the private market as well,” Friedlander said. “If your private market quotes are within 20% of the premium cost of citizens, you will be required to move to a private insurer.”
Lawmakers also tried keeping policies out of Citizens partially because of the risk that they could end up paying extra costs, called assessments, if Citizens can’t pay all of its claims after a hurricane.
The insurance company’s CEO and president thinks the soonest companies could manage to start taking policies out of his insurance group and in the private market would be around November or December of this year after the threat of hurricane damage diminishes.