Citizen’s Insurance seeing floods of new customers over the past few years

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NSF) - The state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has topped 1.387 million policies, as it continues to add thousands of customers per week. Citizens had 1,387,163 policies Friday, up nearly 17 thousand in the past two weeks, according to data posted on its website.

Citizens, which was created as an insurer of last resort, has seen a flood of new customers over the past three years as private insurers have shed policies and raised rates because of financial problems. Citizens’ policy counts have nearly doubled in the past two years and almost tripled since 2020.

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Dave Newell is chairman of the Citizens Market Accountability Advisory Board. According to Newell, “The policy count continues to grow in certain areas of the state, but I don’t think anybody is immune to the growth.”

Earlier this month, insurance regulators approved proposals by seven private insurers to pull as many as 202 thousand policies from Citizens.

In many cases, homeowners can buy less-expensive coverage from Citizens than from private insurers. But a change approved in December by lawmakers and Governor Ron DeSantis requires Citizens’ customers to accept offers of coverage from private insurers if the offers are within 20 percent of the cost of Citizens premiums.

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