Florida must fix property insurance problem

Florida lawmakers, led by Senate President Ben Albritton, are stepping up to make sure property insurance companies pay what they owe. It's a big promise and one that's badly needed.

Too many Floridians who lost homes or had serious damage after storms are being told "too bad" by their insurers. Thousands of claims haven't been paid, leaving families stuck without the help they expected. Albritton has vowed to make sure every valid claim gets paid.

A good place to start would be with the state's own insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

A recent report from the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald revealed something shocking: Citizens denied more than half of the claims filed after hurricanes in 2023. This trend may still be happening after Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Citizens tried to explain these numbers, which came from Weiss Ratings, a financial analysis firm. According to Weiss, Citizens denied 17,000 claims in 2023 – about 50.4 percent of the total. For comparison, private insurance companies in Florida denied about 46 percent of claims.

This raises a big question: What's the point of having insurance if it won't pay when you need it?

Citizens gave several reasons for the high denial rate:

It writes the riskiest policies in Florida, often covering only wind damage. Other types of damage may have higher deductibles or not be covered at all.

Some claims were mistakenly filed by homeowners who no longer had Citizens policies.

Homes valued at $600,000 or more require flood insurance, but flood damage is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, not Citizens.

While these reasons explain some cases, they don't cover everything. Weiss Ratings suggested Citizens itself might not fully understand why so many claims were denied.

The numbers are clear. Citizens denied 50.4 percent of claims in 2023, its worst record yet. Over the past five years, its rate of unpaid claims has grown from 40.2 percent to over half. Florida homeowners already have the hardest time in the nation getting paid after filing claims, according to Weiss.

This is a serious problem. Citizens was created to help Floridians when private insurers couldn't. But with Florida's insurance market struggling after years of hurricanes, more and more homeowners are turning to Citizens. The system wasn't built to handle this many policies, and it shows.

Florida lawmakers have a tough job ahead. If they want people to feel secure buying homes in this state, they need to fix the insurance system. Floridians deserve better than empty promises when disaster strikes.