Homeowners Insurance

The AM Best report focused, in part, on reinsurance, which is backup coverage that insurers buy to help pay claims for such things as hurricanes. Florida-based carriers rely heavily on reinsurance, but prices have soared and coverage has become harder to find.

The session comes as Florida's property insurance market has dealt with billions of dollars in losses, rising prices for consumers and insurer insolvencies.

State lawmakers will meet to pass more legislation aimed at fixing the troubled property insurance market, which took another blow after Hurricane Ian destroyed thousands of homes.

On this week's Florida Roundup, we discuss Florida's troubled property insurance industry, along with Andrew Warren's trial against Gov. DeSantis and how hurricane forecasting could change.

Hurricane Ian dealt a major blow to Florida’s already crippled property insurance market. The Category 4 storm is expected to go down as one of the costliest in U.S. history, and that’s expected to drive more of the state’s private insurers out of business.

The federal rule prohibits improvements to hurricane-damaged homes exceeding 50% of their market value unless the entire structure is updated to meet current building codes.

Southwest Florida has already answered the immediate question after Hurricane Ian slammed into the coast, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of homes with record-high storm surge: Will we rebuild?

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund provides relatively inexpensive reinsurance to carriers as a way to help stabilize the property-insurance market.

The assistance is available in Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Hardee, Lee, and Sarasota counties, those hardest hit by Hurricane Ian

If passed, Floridians who prepare for flooding, rising sea levels, and natural disasters by elevating their homes can do so without their property taxes increasing.

Rampant litigation, costlier storms and rising reinsurance costs have all combined to make chaos in Florida's home insurance market. Now, some worry Ian could send even more insurers out of the state.

Hurricane Ian could affect an already volatile property insurance market.