No one, it seems, has a longer memory than a homeowners insurance company. Florida has not suffered a hurricane since 2005, but insurance companies, particularly Citizens Property Insurance Corp., continue to increase premiums as if Dennis, Katrina and Wilma were planning a comeback. “For the first time on the same stage, ladies and gentlemen ….”
Last week, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced that another 66,500 policies with Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will be eligible for take-out in April. If the same depopulation process we have been talking about has not changed, those 65,000 homeowners and 1,500 commercial property owners will receive “encouragement letters” from Citizens notifying them that they have the option to purchase coverage from private insurance companies.
We are picking up where we left off in our Jan. 20 post. The subject is the depopulation process that Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has been undergoing for the last couple of years. This is one of those things that looks reasonable on paper, or sounds like a good idea at the time, but that definitely has some glitches. Unfortunately, the glitches are at the expense of policyholders — and some of those policyholders are more vulnerable seniors.
We are still talking about some of the problems that have come up during Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s depopulation program. Before we continue, though, we want to take a brief detour.
We usually write about insurance companies that are eager to say no, even before the policyholder has asked the question. In its efforts to downsize Citizens Property Insurance Corp., though, the state has apparently allowed private insurance companies not to take no for an answer — and for property owners to find themselves having to accept insurance they did not want.
More than two years have passed since a sinkhole opened in Seffner, swallowing a portion of a house and killing a 37-year-old man. The victim’s body was never found. In time, the house was demolished, the sinkhole was filled and stabilized — or so authorities believed. The hole opened again in August.
This did not happen in Florida, but it shows just how quirky, even ridiculous insurance laws can be.
Florida has escaped Hurricane Joaquin, but the category 4 storm has contributed to an historic amount of flood damage. As the rain and the flooding continue, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has said her state is living through a 1,000-year flood. It could be weeks before power is returned to some affected areas. And, with so many historic buildings in Charleston, insurance companies are expecting an enormously expensive cleanup.
With Labor Day behind us, we are nearing the end of the 10th anniversary of one of the most destructive hurricane seasons in American history. Much of the media coverage was devoted to Hurricane Katrina, perhaps rightfully so. Still, by the time Katrina hit in August, Florida had already been through Hurricane Dennis, a mere category 3 storm by the time it had finished with Cuba. In September, Hurricane Ophelia blew by, followed by Hurricane Rita. October started with Tropical Storm Tammy, with Hurricane Wilma following close on Tammy’s heels. It was a busy year.
The Tampa Tribune published an op-ed recently that ties in nicely with the Weather Channel’s warnings about the remnants of Tropical Storm Erika. Tampa was beset by heavy rainstorms earlier this month, and the flooding and increased risk of flooding are clearly still on the community’s mind. While Erika is no longer a tropical storm, the system is expected to drop a lot of rain on Florida early this week. It makes sense, then, that the subject of flood insurance would come up.
