Citizens wants to raise its rates by 14% maximum in 2025
State-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is apparently in no mood to give its customers any rate-hike breaks.
Despite signs that the private insurance market in Florida is stabilizing, the insurer of last resort is continuing with its strategy to impose the maximum allowable 14% rate hike on its 1.2 million policyholders in 2025.
The 14% rate hike would affect the company’s personal lines business, which consists of single-family homes, private condominium units, mobile homes and rentals. The rate includes multiperil policies with wind coverage and wind-only coverage for those categories.
The company is recommending raising the premium it charges for multiperil coverage of 71,196 single-family homes in Broward County by an average of 13.5% — from an average $5,385 to $6,112.
In Palm Beach County, 61,357 homeowners would see comparable coverage hiked by an average of 13.4% — from $4,904 to $5,561.
The 96,941 single-family homeowners covered by Citizens in Miami-Dade County would also see an average 13.5% increase from $5,113 to $5,804.
Condominium rates would increase by 14.3% in Broward County, 14.5% in Palm Beach County and 14.2% in Miami-Dade County.
Because the company releases average rate hikes and premiums, individual policies might cost more or less, depending on factors such as insured value and age of the structure.
The recommendations must be approved by the company’s Board of Governors in a meeting Wednesday morning as well as by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation following a public rate hearing at some point in the future.
Typically, the state’s insurance regulators approve a rate that’s somewhat reduced from what Citizens requests.
If the rate hike limit wasn’t in effect, Citizens would need a 38% rate hike to achieve what’s known in the insurance business as “actuarial soundness.”
Prior to 2022, Citizens’ annual rate increases were capped at 10%. But the Florida Legislature, concerned that growth of the company could subject all insurance customers in Florida to surcharges and assessments if Citizens is unable to pay all claims after a disaster, voted to increase the limit on annual rate hikes by 1% a year until it reaches 15% in 2026.
The company maintains that state law required the company to gradually increase its rates until it became “actuarily sound.” But during Gov. Charlie Crist’s term, he responded to rapidly increasing insurance rates after the 2004-05 hurricane years by imposing a 10% cap that drove the company’s rates cheaper than private market rates over time.
Allowing larger rate hikes for Citizens, the Legislature decided in 2021, would deter homeowners from choosing Citizens and encourage competition by private market insurers.
A Citizens spokesman said on Wednesday that the proposed new rates remain “well below” the approved rates of most private insurers in the state.
The Board of Governors is scheduled to vote on the rate hikes at 9 a.m. Wednesday via Zoom conference.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.