Citizens policyholders will pay assessments if storm claims from largest account breach $420 million
Customers of state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the risk you’ve been warned about for years could soon come true:
Chances are increasing that you will be soon be assessed up to 15% of your annual premium to help pay for shortfalls in Citizens’ claims-paying ability. It will happen if claims from one or more storms from the company’s largest policyholder account exceed $420 million this year.
Based on Citizens’ current policy count of about 1.4 million, a 15% assessment would cost each policyholder an average of $550. That’s in addition to their current premium. And South Florida policyholders would bear the brunt of the cost, regardless of where the storms hit. Forty-three percent of Citizens’ policies are in the tri-county region.
In meetings over the spring and summer, Citizens staff and board of governors talked about the near-certainty of a special assessment being levied against Citizens policyholders this year.
All that was needed, Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Montero said, was for the wind to blow.