How will the insurance bills that passed in the recently completed 2024 Florida legislative session compliment past marketplace reforms? Is a property insurance market marred by carrier insolvencies in recent years and ongoing double-digit rate increases starting to stabilize?

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller talks with two legislators about the new laws expected to impact Florida’s property insurance and real estate markets, reinsurance prices, condominium affordability, and their joint belief in bipartisanship for finding workable policy solutions.

Show Notes

Florida State Representative Tom Fabricio (R-Miami Lakes) sits on the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee and Chairs the House Ethics, Elections & Open Government Subcommittee. He is a former insurance defense attorney whose practice now focuses on commercial and real estate litigation, including real estate transactions.

Florida State Senator Nick DiCeglie (R-St. Petersburg) is Vice Chair of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and a former Chair of the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee. He is President and CEO of Hope Villages of America, a Tampa Bay area nonprofit organization addressing hunger, homelessness, and domestic violence.

Both lawmakers discussed their motivation for entering the Florida Legislature and their vision for Florida’s homeowners insurance marketplace and by extension, the state economy. Topics included the admitted insurance market (those companies whose rates and policy forms are approved by state regulators) and the surplus lines companies (those whose rates and forms are largely unregulated, and who often insure risks admitted companies don’t), along with reinsurance companies, who provide catastrophe insurance for insurance companies. Among the bills and issues discussed on the podcast with host Lisa Miller:

• HB 1503 authorizes surplus lines insurance companies to take out policies (“takeouts”) from the legislatively-created and state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation’s non-homesteaded residential properties, such as second homes, among other risks. “I think surplus lines are important (for) it allows other free market competition,” said Rep. Fabricio. “Because ultimately, with Citizens having a population of over 1.2 million to close to 1.3 million policies, we need to depopulate Citizens. We need to bring Citizens down to a number under a million policies, where Citizens will be truly our carrier of last resort,” he said.
• HB 1029 applies the popular My Safe Florida Home homeowners program to condominium complexes and individual condo unit owners in an initial pilot program. The program offers a $2 to $1 match to incentivize homeowners to harden their homes from future hurricanes. “Anytime that we can mitigate losses in the state, it’s going to go a long way in contributing to that healthy insurance market,” said Sen. DiCeglie, who sponsored the Senate companion bill. “In my district alone, we have thousands of condominium associations and those folks are looking for relief as well. Recent condominium reforms requiring them to put more money in reserves, so that they're making the necessary repairs and upkeep of the condominiums (together with)....

(For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-48-2024-legislative-roundup/ )