Citizens Rate Increases Approved
Oct 30, 2009
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approved rate increase requests from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (“Citizens”) yesterday, October 29, 2009. Citizens’ rate filings did not include the High-Risk Accounts, for which a public hearing is scheduled for November 10.
The advisory is reprinted below. To view Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s Order, click here.
Should you have any questions or comments, please contact Colodny Fass.
Florida Insurance Commissioner Approves Citizens’ Rate Adjustments
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty yesterday signed an order establishing Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s (Citizens) rates for some lines of business.
The rates were reviewed to determine they were actuarially sound under Section 627.351(6)(n)5, Florida Statutes, which required Citizens, beginning July 15, 2009, to make actuarially sound rate filings for each personal and commercial line of business it writes to be effective no earlier than Jan. 1, 2010.
A public rate hearing was held in the Tallahassee on Oct. 19. The final rates are similar to the requested rates, although the Office did make minor adjustments. These rate filings did not include the High Risk Accounts (HRA); a hearing for the HRA rates is scheduled for Nov. 10.
Although the Florida Legislature capped rate increases at 10 percent, some categories do show higher increases because the law allows companies to pass on some of the cost of their annual premium paid to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund to policyholders.
The following are the approved statewide average rate increases included in the order:
Personal Lines Accounts (PLA)
- Homeowners: 5.4 percent
- Dwelling Fire: 8.8 percent
- Mobile Homeowners: 1.7 percent
Mobile Homeowners Physical Damage Accounts and Commercial Lines Accounts (CLA)
- Mobile Home Physical Damage: 2.1 percent
- Commercial Property Residential-Condo Assoc.: 10.2 percent
- Commercial Property Residential-Ex-wind-Condo Assoc.: 10.2 percent
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