The Florida insurance market continues to strengthen, showing signs that recent legislation is having positive impacts on the property insurance market, according to the state’s Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky.
Yaworsky’s comments stem from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s (OIR) update on the state’s property and casualty insurance market.
As per the OIR, following the recent “historic legislative reforms” designed to promote market stability, eight property and casualty insurers were approved to enter Florida’s insurance market.
“Florida’s insurance market continues to strengthen, showing signs recent legislation is having positive impacts to the property insurance market,” Yaworsky said.
He continued, “OIR remains steadfast in our efforts to stabilize Florida’s insurance market by implementing legislative reforms and recruiting more insurers to the state. We look forward to continuing this work and promoting a competitive market for policyholders.”
Speaking on Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens), the OIR noted that in 2023, Florida’s state-backed insurer showed improvements in its financial strength over previous years.
“As the market continues to stabilize, OIR is seeing continued interest from authorized insurers in the Citizens Depopulation program. In 2024, OIR approved 13 companies to assume more than 354,000 policies from Citizens. In 2023, more than 275,000 policies were assumed from Citizens, reducing Citizen’s exposure by more than $113 billion,” OIR observed.
If you recall, HCI announced in December last year that its majority-owned subsidiary, TypTap Insurance Company, had successfully assumed approximately $30 million of in-force premium from Citizens. The number of policies assumed by TypTap was approximately 6,800 polices.
Commenting on Florida domestic company strength, the OIR said, “Florida domestic property insurance companies reported they produced a combined net underwriting that almost broke even, a dramatic improvement from losing over a billion dollars in the past three consecutive years.
“When combined with investments, these domestic carriers showed a net positive income in 2023 for the first time since 2016.”
The OIR added, “Insurers establish a loss reserve, which is the amount the insurer believes that claims will cost. At periodic points in time, an insurer goes back and evaluates how much those claims actually cost and uses that information to inform reserves going forward.
“Year end 2023 data reported to OIR reflects a much lower degree of uncertainty in the property insurance market, as insurers reported lower loss reserve development.”
It concluded, “From 2022 to 2023, Florida domestic insurers, including Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, have reported a 44.8% decrease from $772 million to $398 million in loss reserve development at the two-year look-back period and a 28% decrease from $224 million to $161 million at the one year mark.”
