Citizens Board of Governors approves new Florida rates

45 percent coastal, 21 percent inland

The Citizens Property Insur-ance Corp. board of governors has approved premium increases that average 45 percent on Florida’s coastal areas and 21 percent inland.

Florida’s insurer of last resort asked for a 17 percent rate increase in November, resulting in an average 80 percent increase for coastal homes and 51 percent for mobile homes. If Florida regulators approve, almost 840,000 policyholders could receive higher bills in March.

The Fort Myers News-Press did an analysis of Citizen’s documents and estimated that more than 243,000 homeowners live in areas set for average increases that exceed $1,000.

The analysis showed the following average premium increases: 12,000 Lee County residents from $401 to $1,826 a year, raising the average annual insurance bill for more than 8,000 residents to over $6,700; Escambia County 1,100 coas-tal residents will be charged an average $1,638 a year more for home insurance, pushing their average bill to $3,897 and Brevard County coastal insurance bills will go up $795, to $2,030.

Single-family homeowners could see wind-only insurance premiums increase by 66 percent in parts of Broward County and 51 percent in parts of Palm Beach County.

The biggest hikes could be felt by Escambia County residents facing a 127.8 percent increase, and residents in Charlotte, Lee and Santa Rosa counties, facing increases above 70 percent.

The smallest hikes will be in Pasco County at 1.8 percent; Indian River County at 10.5 percent and Hernando County at 19.5 percent.

Citizens officials predict the increase will reduce deficits, such as the one in 2004 that triggered a $516 million assessment against Florida property owners, insured by Citizens or not. An assessment of nearly $1 billion is projected to cover 2005 losses.

“This is the reason we’ve been running deficits, because we didn’t have the reserves built up to cover eight storms,” Citizens chairman Bruce Douglas told the News-Press.

He said the increases are meant to accurately reflect the risk Citizens is insuring against.

“As distasteful as it is to have to consider actuarially sound rates, from an insurance standpoint if you’re going to break even, you better have them,” Douglas said.

Topics Florida