Citizens Drops To Lowest Number Of Policies Since 2006

February 11, 2014

The state-backed property insurer has crossed below 1 million policies — standing at 942,321 on Monday — for the first time since August 2006.

Citizens Property Insurance Corp. announced Monday that efforts to allow private companies to take out bunches of policies at a single time contributed to the reduction, and that the start of a new legislatively-approved clearinghouse last month to shop new policies to select carriers will further reduce the number. Citizens went above the 1 million mark after the hurricane-intensive 2004 and 2005 seasons, in which seven named stormed made landfall in Florida. The state hasn’t been hit by named storm the past eight hurricane seasons, a fact not lost on Citizens.

“Following eight years with no major storms, Florida’s financially sound private insurance market has begun to rebound as new investors and companies look to expand and increase their footprint in the Florida marketplace,” the company said in a release Monday.

Reducing the number of polices, and thus the potential exposure to the state, has been a focus of government officials for several years. The number of policies stood at just below 1.5 million in August 2012. In December, Citizens President and CEO Barry Gilway told Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet that the state-backed insurer should be down to 925,000 policies by the start of the 2014 hurricane season, and around 725,000 policies by the end of 2015.

by The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News