Gov. DeSantis celebrates Citizens insurance improvements

Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida’s insurer of last resort has gone from being a point of concern just a few years ago to being on solid footing today.

He noted that the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation secured reinsurance at a cost “30% lower than last year,” allowing for “the biggest reduction in rates in the history of the program,” with an expectation of “more reduction going forward.”

This comes after reductions of up to 10% in 2025.

Citizens spent $276.5 million on $1.29 billion of new placement and $1.53 billion of multiyear coverage from 2025. The company has also benefited from policies being offloaded to private insurers. Its account load dropped to 274,000 this year from 1.4 million in 2023.

DeSantis in December 2022 signed SB 2A, which reduced litigation while eliminating one-way attorneys fees, addressing issues that supporters of the legislation said forced many insurers out of business in Florida.

“Before the reforms, that reinsurance was going up tremendously,” DeSantis said in Bradenton on Wednesday.

Reforms continue. This month, DeSantis signed SB 1028, which expands Florida’s insurance clearinghouse system. It also creates new mechanisms to keep certain commercial residential and commercial accounts out of Citizens if private coverage is available.

Just years ago, DeSantis was warning that the company was hurtling toward insolvency. He noted in 2022 that Citizens was “unfortunately undercapitalized” and that the company could go “belly up” if it actually had to weather a major storm.

Critics of the Governor, such as U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, have said Florida’s insurance market is a “disaster.”

But Citizens’ return to health heartens not just DeSantis but executives with the company.

“It seems that we are really at an all-time low for probable maximum loss for Citizens policy insurance,” said Tim Cerio, Citizens President/CEO and Executive Director, on Tuesday.

“This is great news and attributable to the reforms and our small PIF (policies in force) count,” he added.