CFO targeting insurance carriers, businesses on immigrants
Citizens Property Insurance approaches its lowest policy count ever, the CFO plans to target insurance companies over illegal aliens driving in Florida, workers’ comp insurance rates fall for the ninth straight year, a new survey shows Florida consumers are noticing improvements in their property claim experience, and a farewell – and future warning – on a surprisingly peaceful hurricane season. It’s all in this week’s Property Insurance News.
Citizens Depopulation: Commissioner Yaworsky’s presentations to legislative committees occurred in the same week that Citizens Property Insurance shared that its depopulation of policies into the private market has worked so well that it is now forecasting a year-end policy count of about 395,000 policies – its lowest count ever. As of mid-November, it’s dropped 544,000 policies this year – 200,000 of them in October’s takeout and another 128,000 in November’s so far. While most policies leaving Citizens are HO-3, its commercial lines takeout numbers for November are expected to be “huge” at close to 3,400 policies. The policies remaining now are mostly DP-3 (dwelling fire) and lower Coverage A, with its business “really shifting into those more modest homes,” another sign of a “significantly improving market across the state,” said Carl Rockman, VP of Citizens Agency & Market Services, during its Market Accountability Advisory Committee meeting. You can read more in our full LMA report here, including the ongoing implementation of Citizens revamped policy clearinghouse, and some of the challenges that it and its agents are working through on the policy renewal portion.
The Citizens’ story is also further proof of the positive impacts of the legislative reforms. Its declining policy count, coupled with a quiet 2025 hurricane season have resulted in new claims decreasing 80% from September 2024 to September 2025. New litigation has decreased by 40% in the same period and pending litigation is down 47%, bringing Citizens to under 9,000 pending lawsuits as of the end of September 2025. You can read more in our full LMA report on the Citizens Claims Committee meeting here, including the continued decrease in Assignment of Benefits (AOB) lawsuits. Fewer customers means fewer premiums, with the properties left in Citizens some of the riskiest in the state, cautioned Yaworsky. “It’s very important that we look at that takeout (of policies). It’s very important that we’re mindful that over-depopulation could actually trigger the assessment we’ve always tried to avoid,” he said.
Citizens Arbitration Resumes: A Leon County Circuit judge has overturned a statewide injunction on Citizens Property Insurance using its alternative dispute resolution program through the state Division of Administrative Hearings. The judge’s order will allow about 400 claims stalled since August to proceed to binding arbitration as allowed under Citizens’ policy language and state law, rather than going through the court system.
A resident is helped at the insurance village in Perry following Hurricane Helene on September 29, 2024.
Consumers Noticing Insurance Improvements: Hi Marley, a text messaging service that insurance companies use to communicate with policyholders, recently commissioned a survey of 1,000 Florida homeowners who’ve filed a claim in the last three years.
- 78% reported being satisfied or very satisfied with how quickly and clearly their insurance company communicated with them during their most recent claim;
- 39% said their claim resolved faster than expected;
- 67% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their current insurance carrier’s overall customer service; and
- 57% agree that their insurance company is doing its best to help customers.
A majority (53%) agree that there are more carriers to choose from, signaling that legislative efforts to attract carriers back to Florida are succeeding. But sentiment is still divided on whether the market itself is more stable than it was three years ago. Only 5% of respondents reported that their premiums decreased in the past three years.
Workers’ Comp Rate Drop: Insurance Commissioner Yaworsky has approved a 6.9% rate decrease for workers’ compensation insurance policies in Florida, as requested by NCCI. The new rates take effect January 1, 2026 on new and renewal policies and mark the ninth consecutive year of workers’ comp rate drops in Florida.
Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia
CFO Targets Insurance Companies & Illegal Immigrants: Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia has announced his legislative priorities to fight illegal immigration. Among other things, the CFO’s plan:
- Forces illegal immigrants’ insurance companies to accept fault if an illegal immigrant is involved in a car accident in Florida;
- Removes Illegal aliens as covered employees in the Workers’ Compensation statute;
- Forces any company that hires illegal aliens to pay out-of-pocket for any injuries;
- Requires companies to use E-Verify to submit a Worker’s Compensation claim; and
- Prohibits illegal aliens from receiving any license issued by the Department of Financial Services.
Sigh of Relief: This year’s hurricane season came to an official close on November 30 without a single hurricane making landfall in the U.S. – the first time that’s happened since 2015. Bob Ritchie, CEO of American Integrity Insurance Company in Tampa, in a LinkedIn post titled Goodbye to the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season, notes that 2025 wasn’t really quiet and that yes, while we got lucky, we didn’t get safer. He explains why a season like this one is not a break, but rather a lesson for those of us in the business of protection and resilience. Other good pieces we’ve read include AccuWeather’s assessment and further research on why we can expect to see big insured losses from major storms in future seasons.
LMA Newsletter of 12-8-25
