Fixin’ Citizens

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As Michael Adams reports, Florida lawmakers are considering the future of the state’s largest homeowners’ insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. It’s supposed to be the insurer of last resort but it’s become the first and only choice for many, given its low pricing and coverage options.

The challenge is to restore Citizens to being a secondary market. There are no any easy answers- or politicians would have already adopted them if there were.

readers have lots of complaints about Citizens and politicians but they also have few solutions.

One reader wrote:

Simple solutions now exist thanks to recent changes to the law. Change the policy form at Citizens to HO-8 or similar contract and raise the rates to be sound. Make it so you can’t opt into Citizens if you can find coverage elsewhere. Eliminate Citizens contracts from agencies that have no private market capacity.

Then another recommended this:

Make Citizens wind and sinkhole insurer for the entire state. Do not let them sell anything else. They would collect premium from the entire state and not be concentrated in the high risk areas. All carriers would then want to do business in Florida. And we would have a competitive market.

And a third suggested this as a fix:

Want to fix Citizens? Remove the legislative requirements and attempt to privatize it.

Those are just a few. We suspect there are a lot more suggestions out there. And we’d like to hear them from you. On Wednesday, Oct. 26 InsuranceJournal.com will post a question asking you what you think should be done to fix Citizens and the Florida property insurance market. On that day, go online at www.insurancejournal.com and give us your solutions. We’ll report them here and online. Maybe somebody has something that hasn’t already been suggested. Are there 10, 50 or even 101 good ideas out there on what to do about Citizens? Let’s find out.

Topics Florida

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