A.G. Gancarski
Even in New Hampshire, Florida’s Governor is being compelled to defend his home state’s battered homeowners’ insurance market.
During a press conference in Rochester, Ron DeSantis pushed back against the “false premise” that he hadn’t addressed issues in the sector, adding that he would have done even more if the Legislature had been on board.
“We’ve done property insurance for three years. Going back to 2021, we had to get what the Legislature would do. There were other things that I wanted them to do then that they weren’t prepared to,” DeSantis said, though he didn’t specify what those other things were.
“Once the election happened, we had better numbers,” DeSantis added. “We called a Special Session very quickly and got those changes done. So we’ve been working on this for a number of years.”
Despite DeSantis’ narrative of action, he has acknowledged elsewhere that Floridians will need some luck to deal with this storm season, as he urged Florida homeowners to “knock on wood” and wait out the crisis during a radio interview earlier this month.
“I think they’re going to wait through this hurricane season and then I think they’re going to be willing to deploy more capital to Florida,” DeSantis said of insurance companies earlier this month on the Howie Carr Show. “So, knock on wood, we won’t have a big storm this summer. Then I think you’re going to start to see companies see an advantage.”
Those with policies from Citizens Property Insurance may need to knock the loudest. DeSantis noted last year that the state-sponsored insurer of last resort was “unfortunately undercapitalized” and that the company could go “belly up” if it actually had to weather a major storm.
DeSantis purportedly helped to boost the reinsurance market during his stop in England this spring. He met with British reinsurance companies, and “secured a commitment from companies in attendance to increase access for carriers serving Florida policyholders,” according to a media release from the Governor’s Office.
Despite the legislative work and the reassuring words, the perception is that the market is still in trouble. Farmers Insurance, the ninth-largest property insurance company in the U.S., left the state recently. Seven other insurers went insolvent in the last year, an indication to many homeowners and observers that the state’s insurance market is in crisis.
19 comments
PeterH
July 31, 2023 at 1:03 pm
Why are insurance rates up 40% since Ron DeSantis took office?
Why is Florida’s inflation higher than any other State in the USA?
What is Florida’s plan for the failing marine ecosystem because of 100 degree ocean temperatures?
Dont Say FLA
July 31, 2023 at 2:13 pm
Rhonda’s plan for insurance, inflation, and the failing marine ecosystem is to label all of that as gay so it falls under Rhonda’s Don’t Say Gay law and nobody is allowed to talk about it or the Rhonda State Guard will come check you for your Rhonda Club Card and if you don’t have it, you get buried under a road paved with radioactive waste for having said “gay.”
Cheesy Floridian
August 3, 2023 at 2:36 pm
Careful, you don’t want to get in trouble for speaking your mind with our Supreme Leader. Look what happened with Disney.
Andrew
July 31, 2023 at 1:07 pm
You need to stay home and see the premium notices of all Florida citizens and stop using insurance monies to run for President! The authors’ analysis of campaign finance data also found that two property casualty insurance firms donated a combined total of $125,000 to DeSantis’s 2023 inaugural celebration, which marked the beginning of his final term as governor in the term-limited state. May 3, 2023
Andrew
July 31, 2023 at 1:08 pm
FLORIDA GOV. RON DESANTIS and his political action committee have received millions of dollars from insurance stakeholders as he has overseen massive giveaways to the insurance industry, according to a new report. Florida homeowners, meanwhile, face ballooning insurance prices and are under increasing economic strain in one of the states hardest hit by climate change.
Andrew
July 31, 2023 at 1:09 pm
Time for Florida citizens to get freedom and have the ability to request a refund of their premiums that are used for political purposes! Come on Ron, where’s our freedom???????????
Tjb
July 31, 2023 at 1:21 pm
If DeSantis have been working on solving the insurance crises for years and it is still a massive problem for Floridians, it demonstrates that Ron is an incompetent and ineffective leader.
Michael K
July 31, 2023 at 1:23 pm
DeSantis was laughed at in Great Britain – literally. He’s done nothing to help Floridians with homeowner and auto insurance policies, and managed make Florida the state with the highest level of inflation in the US! Funny how he’s blaming the legislature who served as his handmaiden through the entire session. And by the way, he had to call a special session because he burned up the regular session with stupid culture wars.
I guess he thought book bans would help us all forget these things.
Ronda guessed wrong.
Silly Wabbit
July 31, 2023 at 1:34 pm
He kwazy.
Karens Uninsured
July 31, 2023 at 1:42 pm
Large companies have declared Florida an incompatible business counterparty.
Bye Karens
Dont Say FLA
July 31, 2023 at 2:05 pm
Knock on wood? Seriously Rhonda?
Given your proven track record of praying hurricanes away, why don’t you just pray hurricanes away again, Rhonda?
WHY RHONDA WHY? Why won’t you just pray the hurricanes away again like you did last time.
Does Jesus hate you now or something, Rhonda? What did you do to Jesus, Rhonda? Rhonda, why does Jesus hate you? OH! It’s because Everybody Hates Rhonda. How could I forget?
Antony
July 31, 2023 at 2:51 pm
Knock on wood that no hurricanes hit this season. That’s what he said and how he’s dealt with it
Knock on Wood?
July 31, 2023 at 3:05 pm
Did this clown really just tell Floridians to “knock on wood” this hurricane season?
What’s next? Just painting some lambs blood on our door?
Flash
July 31, 2023 at 3:08 pm
I kinda feel safer if Trump was here and used his sharpie for us.
Clark
July 31, 2023 at 3:28 pm
Soon there won’t be anyone left in Florida to vote for clown Desantis. When your insurance premium monthly bill exceeds your mortgage payment by hundreds of dollars, It’s time to pack up and say good- bye and take my vote elsewhere.
Face it
July 31, 2023 at 10:24 pm
That’s what they want and that’s what nobody is picking up on. The new GQP does not care if people can’t afford to stay in their homes because demand is so high there is somebody from out of state waiting to buy it, at higher price with higher taxes, higher insurance, higher interest rates, and those out of staters still think they’re getting a bargain, so everyone wins except the people who can’t afford to stay in their homes like you know, the teachers, the civil service, average earners, young families, older folks who spent their lives paying off their home only to be forced out, the pluggers and savers who put everything into their forever home only to lose it because they can’t get insurance, yeah those people don’t count because there’s some investor waiting in the wings to scoop it up at a discount and flip it to some CA or NYer or charge sky high rents and change nice legacy neighborhoods into track lands. It’s capitalism on steroids, baby, and you don’t count, unless you’re in the donor class. But oh yeah, those rubes will still vote for all this too, because Free-dumb! ‘Mericka!
KBM
July 31, 2023 at 4:18 pm
DeSantis Is no leader and has No idea how to run a country..He said that hey would give clemency to the Jan 6 offenders but here in Florida there’s felons who have live productive lives for the pass 20-30 years that have filed for clemency and the systems says it could take years before a review of the case it also states that full
af rights could be restored after 8-10years from the last conviction but people have already done a 20 year spand in their lives as citizens and he is stating up to 10 years to review their case is BS ! He’s running around making promises to the country but he will Not help his own state ! Ron DeSantis is a racist and he shows it nationwide ! For anyone of any color other than his is like living in a third world country in Florida . We’ve had some bad governors but DeSantis is the worst he is prancing his whole entire family around like everything is okay but in reality he’s a slave master and he believes that he still holds the whip here in 2023
InsureGuy561
August 2, 2023 at 9:24 am
Has he tried calling the insurance industry ‘woke’ yet? That’s all he can do.
Speaking as a Florida insurance industry executive of nearly 20 years (my family has over 75 years in the Florida insurance industry), I truly feel that we’re too far gone. With now 22 companies having gone insolvent, been shut down by the state, or voluntarily left the state in the past 18-or-so months, there’s not much that can be done. In my view, all that could truly turn the market around is 1) ban the use of AOBs in Florida, and 2) entice more carriers to enter the state because insurance is about spreading the risk. When we actively have just a handful of carriers still writing new policies, the risk is too concentrated. With the state of the market, however, there’s not much that can be done to lure more companies into our market. This decimated market is here to stay and will likely continue to further crumble if we keep electing leaders who are beholden to their donors (insurance companies, contractors, adjusters, lawyers, etc.) rather than to their constituents. Keep in mind, our homeowners insurance industry has been in a steady decline, up through the recent precipitous freefall, since around 2000 — we’ve only had one political party in charge since then. It’s time for change.
Eldon Tyrell
August 2, 2023 at 2:15 pm
I am SO mad at the Florida GOP and its leader, Ron DeSantis. I moved here on the economic premise of lower costs and rational government. Real Estate taxes are exceptionally high here in Nassau County, and my homeowners’ insurance renewal was up over 100% to almost $9,000. Insurance is not rocket science. Our average rates are double the national rate. Hope is not a solution, nor is “give it a couple of years and it will get better.” Get back here and fix it!!!
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