Less Red Ink in Florida, Two New Insurers, and Citizens Wants Commercial Take-outs

Florida-based insurers still aren’t profitable, overall, but their net losses and underwriting losses are getting smaller. Two more property insurance companies are preparing to enter the Florida market. And the number of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation’s commercial policies is growing – so much so that the state-created insurer is considering a new, commercial-lines take-out program.

Those were some of the takeaways from a wide-ranging hearing held Tuesday by the Florida Senate’s Banking and Insurance Committee on the state of the insurance market. Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky told senators that the historic 2022 and 2023 legislation reform legislation will need more time to have an impact on rates, but already has helped ‘restore rationality’ to the market. The recent approval of take-outs of more than 646,000 Citizens’ residential policies – along with five new insurers in the market – is proof of that, he added.

‘A lot of companies are acting on optimism,’ Yaworsky said.