Data challenges Citizens Insurance’ reason for South Florida rate hikes
Jun 20, 2018
State-owned Citizens Property Insurance Co. is once again seeking to increase annual rates by about 10 percent — the maximum allowable by state law — while blaming “skyrocketing nonweather related water loss claims in South Florida.”
Yet according to Citizens’ own data, nonweather water claims aren’t “skyrocketing,” as asserted in a news release late Tuesday announcing the proposed rate increases, and have actually been in decline since 2015.
If approved by the company’s Board of Governors on Wednesday and then by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation this fall, rates for multiperil coverage (wind plus all other risks) would increase in 2019 by 9.9 percent for Broward County’s 27,262 policyholders, 9.8 percent for 54,431 policyholders in Miami-Dade, and 7.7 percent for Palm Beach County’s 10,725 policyholders.