Citizens Property Insurance Corp. gaining ground

The overall health of Florida's property insurance market is on an upward trend, as is the financial position of the state's "insurer of last resort."

Citizens Property Insurance Corp. President, CEO and Executive Director Tim Cerio reported to the Citizens board of governors June 25 that the company continues to benefit from improving market conditions brought on by legislative reforms.

"It is simply irrefutable that reforms championed by the Governor and passed by the Legislature have had a tremendous impact on improving this market," Cerio said in a media release. "The data bears this out."

Citizens was created in 2002 from the merger of two entities to provide windstorm coverage and general property insurance for homeowners who could not obtain insurance elsewhere.

It was established by the Florida Legislature as a not-for-profit insurer of last resort.

Unlike private insurance carriers, if Citizens is in a position to have to pay out more claims than it has assets, an emergency assessment would be charged to all Florida policyholders to cover the shortfall.

Citizens moved its headquarters from Tallahassee to Jacksonville in 2015, occupying more than 200,000 square feet of space Downtown at 301 W. Bay St.

With its 10-year lease expiring the company announced in March that it is moving to the former Florida Coastal School of Law building at 8787 Baypine Road in South Jacksonville.

Cerio said new private insurance companies are entering the Florida market, existing insurers are expanding and rates are stabilizing.

As a result, Citizens is returning to its role as Florida's state-owned insurance company that will write a policy when no other carrier will.

In addition, Citizens successfully completed its 2025 risk transfer program by purchasing enough reinsurance protection to cover a 1-in-100-year storm without the risk of assessments on non-Citizens policyholders.

Citizens by the numbers

* Citizens' policy count on June 20, 2025, was 777,592, down 36% from a year ago and 44.9% lower than October 2023, when Citizens' policy count peaked at 1.41 million. Historically, Citizens' policy count drops as market conditions improve.

* Citizens' financial exposure decreased from $520.1 billion to $295.1 billion over the past year, a 43% reduction

* Since January 2024, 677,920 Citizens policies have been transferred to private market companies approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation to participate in the Citizens Depopulation Program.

* Citizens' litigation rate fell from 18.6% in 2018 to 10.6% in 2024.

* Citizens' pending number of lawsuits fell from 20,958 in 2022 to 12,622 as of June 2025.

* Since 2024, at least 27 private carriers have filed for rate decreases, while at least 41 companies requested no rate increase.

* Florida had the lowest rate increase in the nation in 2024, with a statewide average increase of 1%.

Source: Citizens Property Insurance Corp.