An Article Published in the Tallahassee Herald on May 15th, 2012 advised that “If Citizens Property Insurance Corp moves forward with a controversial plan to uncap rates for new customers, the state run insurance will increase by an average of 30 percent next year.” The article also notes that “the cost of new policies in part of Dade County could increase by more than 95 percent.”
This can only be described as abusive considering that Citizens is already creating indirect premium increases to policyholders by their reduction of personal liability limits in their policies, and by the cancellation of policies where the amount of insurance is over $1,000,000. Policy holders will now have to purchase a separate excess liability policy in order to maintain the coverage limits they had before at an approximate cost of $200 per year, while those whose policies are being cancelled because of their home value may be looking at premium increases of 200 % or more.
Considering the history of Hurricanes and Tropical Storms that have hit Florida since 1993, it would seem to me that the bigger rates should really be paid in the Florida Panhandle, the West Coast , and in Counties of Martin and St Lucie, because those areas are where the majority of events affecting Florida have hit since that year. During this period Miami-Dade County has basically been affected by two Category 1 storms, Katrina and Wilma, while the previously mentioned areas have seen a combined three Category 3 storms, two Category 2 storms, one Category 4, and 6 tropical storms.
Why do I select 1993 as the year to begin the analysis? The reason is because neither Citizens Property and Casualty nor its predecessor, the Residential Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association, existed prior to that year, and the data compiled is for the storms that caused claims the operations of the companies
It is always convenient to use Hurricane Andrew as the excuse for the rates being paid in Miami-Dade County, while in reality the majority of the insurance carriers that paid for the damages caused by that one in a century storm are no longer doing business in Florida. Why are they not here? That is another blog, for another day.