How the Florida Legislature Gets You to Pay the Home Insurance Bills of Others

longer work as they were intended. Why? Because Florida legislators aren’t willing to tell voters the truth – that these entities are now seriously underfunded and not positioned to do what they are supposed to do. Even worse, many Florida consumers don’t realize that they are paying for someone else’s Florida home insurance.

At the present time, both the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation are underfunded and heavily dependent on an unfriendly bond market to meet their obligations. Both have to try to borrow in advance of Florida hurricanes with mixed success to raise the cash that they need and are coming up short as the country works through the financial crisis.

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is the one organization that causes each of us to subsidize the Florida insurance costs of someone else. Every one of us will be required to pay annual special assessments for many years into the future to cover the cash shortfalls that Citizens Property Insurance had as a result of the 2004/2005 storms. Cash shortfalls are just another way of saying that those who were insured with Citizens for the 2004/2005 storms, were simply not charged enough premium for that coverage. Many of those homes are older homes located near the Florida coast directly in hurricane alley. After the 2004/2005 Florida hurricanes, Florida lawmakers froze the rates being charged by Citizens – a politically popular move that also had the effect