Property Insurance

State lawmakers will consider legislation on property insurance, property tax relief for hurricane survivors and a statewide toll road credit program when they meet in Tallahassee on Dec. 12-16.

A draft of the bill, which will be presented during a special legislative session that starts Monday, would allow property tax refunds to those who were forced from their homes for more than a month.

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.

As Florida lawmakers try to stabilize the troubled property-insurance system next month, they could face worsening problems with reinsurance, a critical part of the system. Overall reinsurance prices are expected to increase by more than 10 percent in 2023, due to disasters such as Hurricane Ian and “increasing frequency and severity of natural catastrophe claims.”

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 increases, which apply to what are known as “personal lines” policies, were approved by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation in June.