Citizens Policy Count Virtually Unchanged

By The News Service of Florida

With Citizens Property Insurance Corp. leaders expecting tens of thousands of policies to move to the private market later this year, the state insurer’s policy count remained almost unchanged last week.

Citizens had 769,059 policies as of Friday, compared to 769,017 policies a week earlier and 769,294 policies two weeks earlier, according to data on its website. Citizens expects an exodus of policies later in October and in November and December because of what is known as a “depopulation” program, which is designed to move customers into the private market.

That program involves private insurers receiving approval from state regulators to assume policies from Citizens. Regulators have approved a series of requests by private insurers to assume Citizens policies as the hurricane season winds down and after it ends. The six-month season will end Nov. 30.

Citizens was created as an insurer of last resort but grew in recent years to become the state’s largest insurer amid problems in the private market. State leaders have long sought to hold down the number of policies in Citizens, at least in part because of financial risks if the state gets hit by a major hurricane or multiple hurricanes.