Currently, Citzen's Property Insurance Corp is FL's largest property insurance carrier with over 1.5 million policies and it continues to grow by about 1,000 policies a day.   It's total exposure is estimated at $500 BILLION and as we stand currently, Citizen's only has the capability to pay roughly $16.7 Billion in the event of a major catastrophic storm.   In May 2011 Senate Bill 408 was made law which was the most sweeping insurance regulation in FL in over 20 years.  One of the provisions of the bill mandated that Citizen's take a closer look at their ever growing business model with the intention to reduce it's overall size and exposure.  These steps have begun to be put into action and in a recent proposal to Governor Scott and other state leaders, Citizen's laid out some of the strategies for limiting coverage and shrinking their exposure.  The following are a few highlights of the 31 proposed changes:

• Adding a 10% (of the Dwelling value) sinkhole deductible.
• Capping Dwelling coverage on high value homes to $1Million. 
• Reducing Personal Liability coverage from $300,000 to...

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Today Citizen's announced a major change to it's policy that will take effect January 1, 2012.th  Several policy limitations and/or exclusions will be added to renewals after this date.  The following are a list of the changes:

• Screened enclosures that are aluminum framed or not covered by the same or substantially the same materials as that of the primary dwelling
• Carports that are aluminum or not covered by the same or substantially the same materials as that of the primary dwelling
• Patios that have a roof covering not constructed of the same or substantially the same materials as that of the primary dwelling
• Awnings
• Structures with a roof or wall covering that are thatch, lattice, slats or a similar material
• Slat houses, chickees, tiki huts, gazebos, cabanas, canopies, pergolas or similar structures constructed to be open to the weather

This move by Citizens is an attempt to detract policyholders from maintaining coverage with the carrier, limit Citizen's "Maximum Probable Loss" and hopefully shed some of the policies that Citizen's has recently taken on.  Citizen's is...

9/23/2011

This week Commissioner McCarthy of the FL Office of Insurance Regulation ruled that the proposed Citizen's rate hike for sinkhole coverage of over 400% was unwarranted and they failed to provide a valid argument of why these rates needed to rise so drastically.  Mccarthy pointed out that Citizen's failed to acknowledge how the newly passed legislation pertaining to sinkhole claims would impact the amount of claims that come into the carrier.  McCarthy didn't feel the proposed rate increase was valid and he in turned granted an average statewide increase of 32.8%.  Residents here in the Pasco county area should see an increase of roughly 10% (of the previously sinkhole premium attributed to the policy).  Residents and homeowner's can breath a sigh of relief that the proposed rate hike isn't going to be taking place!

The latest blow in the local "Sinkhole Saga" was delivered on August 4th when Citizen's sent their rate revisions to the Office of Insurance Regulation for review.  Within the rate revision, Citizen's asked for a 447% rate increase in Sinkhole coverage premium on existing policy holders.  The reasoning behind the increase was cited in a recent report which shows that Citizen's collected $32 Million in premium for sinkhole coverage in 2010 and paid over $245 Million in claims in that same time period.  These numbers are up from the 2009 reports of $19.6 Million collected and $96 Million in sinkhole payouts.  Sinkhole claims are continuing to roll in at a staggering rate and continue to threaten the financial stability of the state's second largest property insurance company.  Many industry insider's speculate that Citizen's may not have enough funding to pay claims should we have a series of major storm events, which I believe is why Citizen's is trying to get the Sinkhole Issue under control with these drestic changes.  If approved, the new rate structure would go into effect in Jan/ Feb 2012.  The Office of Insurance Regulation has 45 days...