Florida to Hear Citizens Property Insurance Rate Hikes of 5% to 10%

October 20, 2009

Florida regulatory officials will hold a public hearing Nov. 10 on proposed hikes of between 5 and 10 percent in the premiums charged by Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed property insurer.

If approved, the increases for the state's biggest property insurer would go into effect starting in January.

The rate proposals are in keeping with a law enacted this past legislative session allowing Citizens to gradually increase premiums by up to 10 percent a year until its rates are actuarially sound.

The personal lines rate increases that Citizens has proposed are:

Homeowners: 5.4%
Dwelling Fire: 8.8%
Mobile Homeowners: 1.8%

For commercial property accounts and mobile homes, the proposals are:

Mobile Home Physical Damage: 2.1%
Commercial Property Residential-Condo Association. 10.1%
Commercial Property Residential-Ex-wind-Condo Association: 10.1%

These are statewide averages.

The amounts are less than some in the insurance industry believe are needed to shore up the state fund financially and encourage more competition from private carriers.

After having had its rates suppressed for three years, Citizens' own actuaries have acknowledged rates would have to go up about 40 percent on average on residences, more than 10 percent on commercial residential properties and as much as 140 percent on wind-only commercial property policies to reach proper funding for its exposure, which is about $405 billion for its 1,040,000 policies.

The Office of Insurance Regulation's public hearing will start at 9 a.m. in Tallahassee.

Originally, a hearing had been scheduled for Aug. 25 but it had to be postponed due to a glitch in the electronic transfer of data accompanying the rate filings, according to OIR.

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation