Florida bids farewell to a quiet hurricane season. That’s good news for insurers, especially Citizens Property Insurance Corporation The company is in better shape financially after unloading about 15% of its policies.
Citizens is Florida’s insurer of last resort. It was created to provide insurance for property owners who can’t get coverage anywhere else. But the state has taken on too much risk and is steadily luring more private carriers back into the market. Otherwise, Florida taxpayers could be on the hook for billions of dollars in damages if a major hurricane hits.Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier says the company has cut a chunk of the 1.3 million policies it carried last summer.
“We should go below a million policies in early 2014," Peltier said. "The significance of that is that our exposure has dropped and therefore the risk of assessments that all Florida policyholders would need to pay in the event of a big storm diminishes, and that’s good for everybody.”
Citizens has been able to reduce its load thanks to a surge in private carriers that are willing to take on more risky properties. It’s also working to get its premiums more in line with the private insurance market.