ORLANDO, Fla. – A state senator is looking for one other special legislative session to cope with Florida’s property insurance drawback.
Florida’s insurance market was already in disaster earlier than Hurricane Ian and now the state faces billions of {dollars} in harm.
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Six insurance corporations have left the state this 12 months alone and greater than two dozen others are being watched due to insolvency considerations.
Now with Ian, many consider extra insurers could possibly be leaving the state. Meanwhile Citizens, Florida’s state-backed insurer of final resort, now has just below 1.1 million insurance policies in Florida.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, says the governor and the legislature should act rapidly.
“Florida was already in an incredibly challenging insurance market, Ian only makes it worse,” Brandes instructed News 6.
Brandes has been sounding the alarm about Florida’s insurance market since effectively earlier than Hurricane Ian.
Action to appropriate the market should be swift, Brandes mentioned.
“The number one thing that needs to happen is that the legislature needs to go back into special session in November, right after the election, and they need to begin to deal with some of the major issues of tort reform that needs to happen in Florida,” Brandes mentioned.
Why not wait till the common session?
“The problem with property insurance legislation is it normally takes 18 to 24 months to work through your books. If you wait until the regular session, which starts in March, you may not pass anything until April or beginning of May, and it won’t go into effect until July,” he mentioned.
“If it doesn’t happen immediately, we’re going to see the market, we’re going to see more and more companies failing or leaving the market altogether and that just means higher prices and less competition for Florida,” Brandes mentioned.
The state legislature had a special session in May to deal with the property insurance disaster.
Many individuals interviewed by News 6 had excessive hopes for the final special session, however they have been upset afterward as a result of they by no means noticed their charges go down.
Will the legislature get it proper with one other special session?
“They really don’t have a choice right now. The legislature has kicked the can so far down the road that they’ve run out of road,” Brandes mentioned.
“There are no more options right now. If the legislature waits until regular session, people are going to be looking at 30% to 40% rate increases on top of the 100% rate increases that they’ve seen over the last two or three years. It is unsustainable, and you’re about to gut the middle class of the state of Florida. If you don’t fix property insurance, Floridians will begin to pay within the next 18 to 24 months more in property insurance than they are in their mortgage,” Brandes mentioned.
News 6 contacted the governor’s workplace for a response about this name for a special session however has not heard again but.
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