TALLAHASSEE — Citizens Property Insurance President Timothy Cerio encouraged policyholders to “shop the market” if their renewal notice includes a sizeable increase.
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Addressing the state-run company’s Board of Governors on Wednesday, Cerio also proclaimed that “the market is working” due to legislative changes in recent years allowing it to shed policies that are picked up by private carriers.
“I don’t think we’re going to grow because it is such a robust market,” Cerio said ahead of the board meeting in Lake Mary. “They will find a home in the private market, but they should shop it.”
Cerio said Citizens’ policy count was almost at 255,000 as of Sept. 18, with $70 billion in total insured value. Three years ago, Citizens’ potential exposure was at $552 billion.
Citizens posts on its website 266,231 policies in place as of Aug. 31, less than half from a year ago and well below the 1.4 million policies handled in September 2023, when the agency accounted for 15% percent of all policies in the state.
Currently, Citizens makes up 1.8% of the market.
Board Chairman Carlos Beruff said Citizens exists to absorb policies from companies that fail, but “I don’t think Citizens should exist.”
“When I joined this board six years ago, the insurance policies that we were taking in were exploding,” Beruff said. “And that was a concern for me because I didn’t want to have to tax the citizens of Florida through their policies.”
Under state law, if Citizens’ sees its surplus wiped out by a hurricane or series of storms, it can place assessments on its policyholders and policyholders in the private sector to rebuild its capacity to pay claims.
With the reduction in policies, Citizens has also reduced its workforce from 1,300 workers in 2023 to just under 900.
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A key part of the recent legislative changes targeted lawsuit costs incurred by insurers, which Cerio said “really exploded” after Hurricane Irma ran up the state in 2017.
Cerio said lawsuits involving Citizens claims have decreased by 55% since 2023 due to the legislation.
“This is why we were able to pass along a rate decreases to consumers, and the same is true for the private industry as well,” Cerio said.
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Another part of the decline is due to depopulation efforts first employed after the policy count reached 1.48 million near the end of 2012.
The effort features a “clearinghouse” where homeowners are offered to a private firm when their coverage is within 15% of the offer by Citizens.
The state has also benefitted by the absence of hurricanes making landfall in 2025 and so far this year, which officials have said allows some softening in homeowners insurance prices and growth in new carriers.
State leaders have long sought to hold down the number of Citizens policies, at least in part because of financial risks if Florida gets hit by a major hurricane or multiple hurricanes. Citizens was created to provide a haven for homeowners who couldn’t find affordable coverage with a private carrier, but its policy counts have fluctuated significantly, depending on private market conditions.
Cerio said Citizens is projected to end the year with about 248,000 policies, with total exposure of around $77 billion.
“This is a historical low,” Cerio said. “But I will tell you that number may wind up being much lower depending on the success of (depopulation). It’s just that our data analytics team is not willing to go there just yet.”
A new law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed this year (SB 1028) establishes a new clearinghouse for commercial policies and allows surplus lines insurers that can display strong financial strength ratings to be considered for the policy takeouts.
Surplus lines insurers are companies not licensed in Florida but allowed to operate as an “eligible” insurer.
Separate from the Citizens meeting, Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky on Tuesday announced that since January 2024, 48 companies have filed for a rate decrease, and 53 companies have requested no change or increase.
“I expect to see more aggressive rate cuts in the near future and going into 2027,” Yaworsky said in the release. “OIR is receiving a flood of rate decrease requests ranging from -0.3 (percent) to -19.7 (percent).”
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