The Florida legislature will convene this week in a brief special session addressing a limited number of topics. Among these, the legislature is expected to provide additional relief for areas affected by Hurricane Idalia and increase funding for the My Safe Florida Home program. Hurricane Idalia had a substantial impact on some of Florida’s rural […]
The Florida legislature passed significant property insurance reforms in its December 2022 special session. Governor Ron DeSantis promptly signed these reforms into law, with many taking effect immediately upon the law’s effective date. However, a key change related to assignments of benefits (AOB) begins to have its real impact in the new year. For many […]
The new year will bring personnel changes at key insurance-related organizations in Florida. Perhaps most notably, Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier stepped down effective December 28, 2022. Commissioner Altmaier first joined the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation in 2008. He held several roles within the property and casualty financial oversight area, including Chief Analyst. He then […]
The Florida legislature will convene in a special session from December 12, 2022, through December 16, 2022. The special session is expected to include consideration of property tax relief for Floridians affected by Hurricane Ian as well as property insurance reforms. Governor Ron DeSantis has mentioned in recent weeks that he anticipated a special session […]
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation continues to take on policies at an alarming rate and its premium levels undercut the private market. At latest count, Citizens had almost 1.13 million policies. This is an increase of about 100,000 policies in the last three months. Since last November, Citizens has grown by nearly 400,000 policies. Even more […]
The Florida property insurance market continues to experience reduced availability and increasing prices due to extraordinary litigation levels. Widely-discussed sources show that Florida has nearly 80% of the nation’s property insurance litigation despite having less than ten percent of the countrywide claims. Stated differently, Florida had about 100,000 lawsuits last year, which vastly outpaced the […]
In late May, the Florida legislature passed several measures intended to address continuing concerns with Florida’s residential property insurance market. Lawmakers commented that the new laws will not provide quick fixes; instead, the benefits might take 12-18 months to materialize. Unfortunately, this estimate might prove to be optimistic as two lawsuits have been filed challenging […]
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation continues to add policies at an alarming pace at the onset of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season. Citizens recently hit a weekly total of 12,000 new policies as its total policy count approaches 900,000. With Citizens being the largest residential insurer in Florida, its current policy count is much higher than […]
The Florida legislature has released its multi-faceted proposals for reforming Florida’s property insurance market. The proposed legislation includes temporarily expanding available capacity from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, incentivizing loss mitigation through windstorm protective devices, increasing regulatory oversight for distressed insurers, and curbing Florida’s litigation crisis by rebalancing attorneys’ fee incentives. To effectively address Florida’s […]