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The prospect of a major storm has weighed heavily on Florida’s lawmakers and insurance regulators. After the 2005 hurricane season, a number of companies in the state that offered homeowners insurance closed their doors. Private insurers have been loath to return, and homeowners have been left with one choice: Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The state-run company has grown exponentially over the past few years; the carrier that was supposed to be the last-resort for Floridians now boasts about 1.5 million policyholders.

Lawmakers promised to revamp Citizens Property Insurance Corp., and it looks as if they could make good on that promise this year. Citizens, Florida’s insurer of last resort, is currently allowed to recover a deficit by assessing policyholders — Florida residents — up to 15 percent of premium for each fund that falls behind. If the personal lines account, the commercial lines account and the coastal account all had a deficit, a Floridian could see an assessment of 45 percent of his or her premium.

Florida homeowners have started to dread receiving their homeowners’ insurance bill. One homeowner in Florida was shocked to see that his homeowners’ insurance company increased his total replacement cost value of his home by $57,000 in one year. The homeowners’ insurance value is almost double what it would take to rebuild this two-bedroom, 950 square foot house.

Condo owners in Miami-Dade County may see an increase in their condo association fees coming soon. State-run insurance company Citizens Property Insurance Corp. said they will start raising insurance rates for many high-rise condominiums in South Florida by roughly 21 percent, as reported by the Sun Sentinel.

Florida’s insurance market has long been a lively topic of discussion among legislators and policymakers. Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has struggled to stay viable and to revert to its intended role as property insurer of last resort. At the same time, Congress has been casting about, trying to figure out what to do about the National Flood Insurance Program.

President Obama reauthorized the National Flood Insurance Program in January, for what seems to be the hundredth time in recent years. In Congress, a long-term NFIP reauthorization bill passed by the House last summer languishes in the Senate, in spite of the efforts of a bipartisan group of senators. The 41 lawmakers recently sent a letter to Senate leadership urging them to make the insurance program a priority.

Tell anyone in Miami that health care insurance is expensive and he or she will respond “Tell me something I don’t know.” That’s why it is extremely frustrating for people when they experience problems with their insurance, like a denied claim. Understandably, they feel they have been paying a lot for this protection and do not understand why it is not there for them when they need it.

Yesterday we discussed legislation involving auto insurance reform. Some lawmakers want to reform Florida’s no-fault auto insurance law in order to protect insurance companies from bad faith insurance litigation. There is still much debate on whether reform is needed and what form any legislation should take. It is also unclear whether any of the proposed bills would eliminate the need for auto insurance litigation, which is necessary for many policyholders to enforce their rights against unscrupulous insurance companies seeking to cut costs.

In our last post we discussed legislation tackling bad faith insurance litigation reform. Bad faith insurance litigation is not the only insurance topic to make it into this legislative session. The state insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty believes that this will be the year that lawmakers finally make reforms to Florida’s no-fault auto insurance law.

Florida is one of seven states to sign a settlement with Prudential Financial in a death benefits dispute. The multi-state investigation into the insurance industry’s treatment of unpaid life insurance benefits began last May. The settlement requires Prudential, the second-largest life insurer in the country, to institute procedural changes and to pay $17 million to the states to fund compliance monitoring.