Citizens Property Insurance Corporation will remain financially stable with a $6.4 billion capital surplus and substantial reinsurance coverage despite being hit with an expected total of $1.2 billion from 70,000 Hurricane-Irma related claims.
The state-managed property insurer has so far closed nearly two-thirds of the 62,000 Irma-related claims, including more than 42,400 claims in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties.
“With $6.4 billion in surplus and substantial reinsurance coverage, Citizens remains fiscally sound after responding quickly and effectively to Hurricane Irma,” said Chris Gardner, chairman of tested Citizens’ Board of Governors; “but we still have much work to do. Our focus will remain on our policyholders until we have satisfactorily handled all outstanding claims.”
Industrywide as of November 13, 2017, the storm had produced 830,788 claims and more than $5.8 billion in property damage, according to data from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.
Citizens’ Hurricane-Irma related losses have been in line with previous expectations, the non-for-profit government entity for Florida policyholders didn’t tap into its $1.33 reinsurance protection.
This could be due to the entity having shed a lot of hurricane risk exposure over the last three years, as well as the fact that the destruction caused by Irma in Florida was not as severe as it potentially could have been.
