Citizens to Keep Assessment Level at 1%
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has announced that the emergency assessment in effect to pay for 2004 and 2005 storm bonds will remain at 1%. This follows an earlier reduction in the assessment from 1.4% to 1%. Citizens revisits the assessment amount annually to ensure the assessments are generating enough money to retire the bonds. If the assessment is generating excess funds, Citizens seeks to lower the assessment but will defer doing so if the administrative burdens of changing the amount outweigh the benefits of the reduction. In that case, Citizens will wait and perhaps implement a larger reduction later.
The current asessment level has generated some excess proceeds, but not enough to justify changing the assessment. One possibility being considered is to end the assessments earlier than anticipated. Although the assessments currently are slated to end in 2017, the excess amounts could allow for termination somtime in 2016.