Many of us have seen 50% increases, cancellations and non-renewals of our Home Insurance policies.
Insurance Companies have passed their losses from the Assignment of Benefits scam onto their policyholders.
Your neighbor got that new roof, and your home insurance went up 50%.
Meanwhile, plaintiff attorneys got rich.
A 50% increase was bad, but at least they were offered a renewal.
Thousands of Floridians have been cancelled or non-renewed due to “Risk Exposure”.
Thousands more saw their companies go out of business.
No Help from the Governor or lawmakers
Evidently, the Home Insurance crisis was not a high priority for the Governor and the Legislature.
It makes you scratch your head wondering how they can ignore this crisis.
They are threatening a special session by the end of the year.
By that time, tens of thousands of Floridians will lose their coverage as more carriers go out of business.
Dire Warnings from Demotech
In case you didn’t know, Demotech is a rating agency that checks the financial stability of Florida insurance companies.
Here’s what they had to say about the Florida Home Insurance market and its Insurance Companies.
“The conditions of the property insurance marketplace in Florida are unsustainable and, without the necessary corrective action, many Florida insurers will struggle to maintain adequate surplus, efficient capital sources will avoid the market, private reinsurance costs will become prohibitively expensive, and consumers will ultimately bear the cost.” The letter also warned, “If current market conditions remain in place, we anticipate that we will downgrade Financial Strength Ratings of a number of companies in the coming weeks.”
Demotech President Joe Petrelli to Florida’s Governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House
This downgrade has the potential to be disastrous to Florida.
Without an A rating from Demotech, an Insurance Company would not be eligible for a residential mortgage backed by Fannie Mae.
That would be the majority of home-buyers and would expand the crisis to banks, lenders, and real estate professionals.
Another Company, Lighthouse Property Insurance, was downgraded last week and they insure 169,000 policies.
This is after Avatar (37,000) and St John’s (160,000) going into receivership and Progressive dropping 58,000 policies.
Citizens inundated with new applications
The “Market of Last Resort” has become the only market available in many areas of the state – especially South Florida.
Citizens also has a rate cap, so its premium increases have been slowed by this cap and makes Citizens cheaper than most.
Citizens rates have been found to be LESS than admitted carriers by an average of 28% – and up to 50% in the tri-county area of South Florida.
So people are opting for the lower coverage and assessment possibility of a Citizens policy in order to make their coverage affordable.
Add to this Citizens has to absorb 99% of all the liquidated companies’ policies and you have a tremendous growth rate.
IN 2021 Citizens increased its policy count by 216,000 at a clip of 4100 new policies each week.
The company predicts that it’s policy count could be 1.1 Million by the end of 2022.
That is hardly a “Market of Last Resort”.
The Problem is Obvious and so’s the solution
Florida must reign in the Attorneys that are gaming the system.
Florida accounts for 80% of all Property Insurance litigation in the United States.
The next closest state represents 3.4% of Property litigation.
Since 2013, more than 13.7 billion dollars have been paid in Florida Property Claims.
71% of that money went to Plaintiff attorneys.
21% went to Company attorneys defending the policies.
Only 8% was actually paid to Homeowners in these claims.
$11.234 billion paid to the Attorneys for lawsuits and $1.096 billion paid to Homeowners to repair their homes.
That $11.234 billion for lawsuits is our problem.
There’s your 50% increases in South Florida’s tri-county area.
That’s your company going out of business, deciding not to write new policies, and non-renewing current polices.
And it’s up to our Lawmakers to do their job and protect us from this rampant abuse.
Only Florida has this problem in the entire United States and only Floridians can fix it.
Until then, we will all have to do our best to try to keep our homes insured in an uncertain future.
Contact Cronin Insurance if you need help with your home insurance policy.
Low rates, choice of companies, and personal advice:
Cronin Insurance is the Wise Choice.
