The entire state of Florida may end up on the hook for damage caused by Hurricane Idalia.
That’s because the state-run insurance company, Citizens, has hundreds of thousands of policies in the area that could be hit by the storm. The most recent National Hurricane Center forecast projects the largest storm surge just north of the heavily populated Tampa Bay area in counties where Citizens has over half the market. The center is also expecting high windsfrom Tampa north all the way to the state’s Big Bend region, and unlike many private insurers in the state, Citizens is willing to cover wind damage.
Citizens is designed to be backup for Floridians if they can’t get private insurance for their homes and commercial property. As more and more insurance companies leave the state or go out of business, the company has massively expanded its reach over the state’s insurance market. In 2023, Citizens expects to have 1.7 million clients with $5.1 billion in premiums, compared to under 500,000 policyholders and $877 million in premiums in 2019, according to the company’s budget report.
“The difference for this storm of a few degrees is billions of dollars to Citizens,” Jeff Brandes, a former Florida state senator and president of the Florida Policy Project, told me. If it hits Pasco or Hernando counties head-on, Brandes said, the resulting insurance claims could exhaust Citizens’ current surplus and force it to issue “special assessments” — essentially one-time bills — on the state’s policyholders, including drivers. Citizens has over 50% of the property insurance market in the two counties north of Tampa Bay, according to Brandes, meaning that substantial storm damage could incur large losses for Citizens. -|
Earlier this year, Citizens reported that “due to Hurricane Ian, Citizens’ financial resources have been significantly depleted,” and that its surplus had declined to just under $5 billion. This could mean that Florida policyholders could be on the hook for the state-run company: “If Florida is impacted by a storm or series of storms in 2023, Citizens will need to rely on its assessment capability and/or post‐event financing to meet its policyholder obligations,” Citizens said in the report.
“You see massive amount of socializing risk [in a state] that doesn’t want to talk about socialism,” Brandes said. “We’re the free state of Florida except for our largest liability — Citizens — which we are happy to subsidize.”
Below, Andrew Hoffman of University of Michigan School of Business:
One thought on “Will Idalia Break Florida’s Insurance Market?”
Everything comes down to time and money and it’s clear we’re running out of time. It’s logical that money will now be the deciding factor in decision making.
But as costs explode due to extreme weather, we will see bankruptcies increasing. At some point there will be no time and no money, and then Florida and elsewhere will be permanently screwed.
If you don’t deal with distant sorrows, they will come to you.
Everything comes down to time and money and it’s clear we’re running out of time. It’s logical that money will now be the deciding factor in decision making.
But as costs explode due to extreme weather, we will see bankruptcies increasing. At some point there will be no time and no money, and then Florida and elsewhere will be permanently screwed.
If you don’t deal with distant sorrows, they will come to you.