Citizens board proposes 14% rate hike for homeowners

MIAMI – The board overseeing Florida’s publicly-owned insurer of last resort unanimously voted to approve a double-digit rate hike Wednesday morning.

The Citizens Property Insurance Corporation board is proposing an average 14% rate increase on “personal lines” — which includes homeowners’ policies. But it would still need to be approved by state regulators before taking effect.

According to its website, Citizens is Florida’s largest property insurer with more than 1.4 million policies.

Mark Friedlander, with the Insurance Information Institute, tells Local 10 News that the proposed increase is coming at a time where over the past year, Florida has seen a stabilization to what has been a very volatile private insurance market.

“In the private market, we’re seeing average rate increases this year under 2%,” he said. “That’s an incredible change from prior years, where we saw double-digit increases.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke on the proposed increase during an event in Marathon Wednesday.

“Interestingly, you got a chunk of people on Citizens who got on private and actually got lower rates on private. So Citizens is usually below actuary and I think that’s true mostly, but in this case, there were things that are done,” DeSantis said. “We’ve had 10 companies file for no increase in rates for the 2024 year and there have been eight companies that have filed for decrease in rates. Now, not 25% decreases; you’re talking about half a percent here. But if you look at what had been happening when the market was really destabilized, you know, you, you have that.”

Friedlander largely echoed the governor’s comments.

“In most cases, Citizens customers pay much less than private market customers. In fact, the analysis we did showed a 30 to 40% average rate difference between a Citizens policy and a private market policy in 2023,” he said. “So there’s still a large gap. So even with a 14% increase, most likely, you’re still going to be paying less (with) Citizens rates.”

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation will have to sign off on the increase.

If it does, the rate hike will take effect in January.

Rate hike breakdown: