Moved from Citizens to private insurance, some see rise in premiums
MIAMI - Jena McClure had Citizens insurance for 17 years on her Cooper City home until recently, "I'm paying 20% more than what I was with Citizens and I have no choice in the matter."
She was moved to a private insurance company and her premium soared. "I was paying $6,485, and I'm now paying $8,000 a year," she said. "I think it's ridiculous. It's not fair."
Now people with secondary homes, part-time residents, are in line for the same thing in a plan passed by the legislature.
"Citizens is focused on depopulating to get its risk exposure to a much more manageable level," said Mark Friedlander. He is with the nonpartisan Insurance Information Institute. He explains the move to dump policies from the state's insurer of last resort is necessary.
"We need to get to a more stable environment. So we don't see massive spikes. Year after year the average cost of insurance of Florida has gone up a cumulative 102% over the past 3 years that is unsustainable for most consumers here in Florida," he said.
Friedlander said this is an ongoing effort. In October Citizens had 1.4 million customers, now it's down to 1.1 million. He said it needs to get to about 500,000. If not, a bad storm could mean big payouts and we all could be on the hook.
"We all have the potential to pay what we call a hurricane tax. That means a multi-year surcharge on all our insurance bills, our home insurance, our auto insurance, even pet insurance."
For Jena and her family, the mission now is to go line by line with her new policy to find ways to save.
"I'm at the breaking point already between the car insurance and health insurance and homeowners insurance. But I really feel like there's nothing I can do. I have to have homeowners insurance," she said.
That latest insurance bill to shrink Citizens insurance is now waiting for the governor's signature.