1 million Florida homeowners with Citizens face double-digit insurance hikes

good evening and welcome to ABC Action News at five I'm Jamison Euler and I'm Wendy Ryan thank you for joining us citizens property insurance is proposing an average 14 increase on all personal lines of policies that means homeowners condo owners mobile homeowners and renters remember citizens is the last resort property insurance provider in the state and only those who are left with no other affordable options can sign up ABC Action News in-depth reporter stassi almost has been covering the property insurance crisis for months now she joins us in the studio with what this means for homeowners right here in the Bay Area stassi well guys right now citizens is supposed to be the last resort option here but I've been covering this issue for almost two years and again and again people tell me it's their only option and here's why nearly a dozen private companies have gone insolvent in the last couple years they claim due to outrageous lawsuit costs dozens more have pulled out of the state or stopped writing new business and overall rates homeowners are seeing their insurance costs double even triple as companies try to pay their expenses so yes citizens now has a record number of policies prior to 2020 they averaged about 400 000 policies today they tell me about 1.3 million one of those is into stack citizens was my only option no one else would touch me into Stags lives in a quaint 1926 Home in St Petersburg I moved here in 2018 the insurance has it doubled by 2020. she says it went from about three thousand dollars to six thousand and last year they told me my insurance was going to go up to almost thirteen thousand dollars which was crazy she says the next insurance company she got dropped her within one month and the only option left was citizens four thousand five hundred fifty five dollars a year for my 1100 square foot home a third of what her insurance would have been with her first insurer but still three times the amount she was paying in Virginia in 2018. I have nightmares nightmares about the insurance here and the nightmares are getting worse I'm very concerned about what's going to happen this year because I know it's going to go up maybe 15 percent and I got a notice that said if another company offers you within 20 percent then you have to take it new legislation passed in the second special session on property insurance last year makes a homeowner ineligible for Citizens if another company offers to take their policy at a rate within 20 percent of citizens it also requires all Citizens homeowners to get supplemental flood insurance no matter their flood zone and now the state regulated company is asking the office of insurance regulation for an average 14 rate increase citizens is incredibly inexpensive they don't want to write any business but they're taking on a huge amount of risk so it puts the policyholders at risk it puts the the citizens of State in the State of Florida at risk Tampa Bay insurance agent Mike puffer says he's writing almost all of his new business with citizens the others have homes valued above citizens Max of seven hundred thousand dollars even what we're seeing when we have to endorse a lot of the policies are right flood policies it's still cheaper than than if they were to just buy a standalone policy through the private Market according to Citizens an analysis of homeowners rates in 2022 found their average premium was 44 below premiums charged by nine private companies in the state looking at their latest data from the end of March citizens has about 1.3 million policies with nearly 3.9 million dollars from premiums and surcharges compared to 502 million dollars in total exposure meaning the amount of everything they are insuring if I'm considering leaving because of the insurance I honestly don't know what people who have less than I do what they're doing this is not the United States it's Florida so again the purpose of today's citizens rate hearing is to gather public input and get testimony from citizens regarding those filings many of the things that we just heard now the office of insurance regulation is expected to make a final decision after the public comment period ends that'll be at the end of the month June 22nd yeah Anastasia it might not happen right now but the thought of these prices going that high is going to scare a lot of people is there anything they can do to maybe lower the prices all right my one piece of advice is Storm proof your home so when an insurance company is looking at what they have to ensure if they have to insure an older roof if they have to ensure windows that may blow out during a storm it's going to cost more so try to storm proof your home and talk to your agent about how you can lower your rates and we're going to hear more details about what happened inside today's meeting during a live report with our forest Saunders that's coming up tonight on ABC Action News at six all right stall C thank you mean well Stussy has done some extensive in-depth reporting on this very subject the property insurance crisis across our state you can find all of her stories in the price of paradise section of our website at see action news doc

Channel: ABC Action News

Views: 409,657

Keywords: abc action news, citizen property insurance, citizens home insurance

Id: Ztp4ivxrjac

Length: 4min 49sec (289 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023