Citizens Policy Count Continues to Grow as Ian Approaches
The policy count of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation reached 1,064,000 as of the end of last week as Ian began to organize. This represented an increase of 9,000 policies over the prior week’s policy count.
The recent policy count underscores the substantial growth Citizens has seen as a result of problems plaguing the Florida market as well as a rating structure that underprices its policies in relation to the private market. Just two years ago, Citizens had 511,055 policies. At this time last year, its policy count had grown to 708,919 policies for an increase of just under 200,000 policies. The pace of change has accelerated as Citizens added more than 350,000 policies over the last year, and it shows no signs of slowing down. The Florida market remains in need of significant reforms to address the problem of disproportionate litigation compared to every other state in the country and the resulting erosion of private market capital. Meanwhile, Hurricane Ian serves as a reminder of ever-present hurricane risk that threatens the state and compounds the market’s flaws.