You’ve heard me call Citizens Property Insurance Company (Citizens) a “safety valve” for Florida’s property market. I look at it this way: when things get rough in the private market it’s a safe haven for those that private carriers don’t want to insure, or those who can’t afford the approved rate.
Technically, however, Citizens is a state backed carrier that relies on assessments to cover intentionally repressed rates. Similar to an assessable reciprocal (See Fla. Statutes Chapter 629) but without the “attorney in fact” and with the added benefit of being able to assess every policyholder, including those that aren’t insured in Citizens and those that don’t even own a home.
One of Citizens prime missions is to keep its’ policy count and thus its’ assessment exposure as low as possible, low enough to avoid an assessment. At its’ December 2021 board meeting, Chairman Carlos Beruff, said lawmakers “…have given us an impossible task!” [Read more…] about “They Have Given Us An Impossible Task!”