‘Too early’: Gov. DeSantis not hazarding a guess on Milton’s insurance impacts

Hurricane Milton continues its hellish trawl toward the Sunshine State, and Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t offering preemptive reassurances about the insurance market in its inevitable aftermath.

Asked about Citizens Property Insurance’s “exposure” in the anticipated track by Gary Fineout, the solvency of which he has questioned, the Governor said it was “too early” to discern the ultimate impact of this historic storm and its “major, major impact” on one of the most beleaguered insurance markets in the country.

While DeSantis said the impact of the last hurricane was minimal, given “the wind damage on Helene was a very small portion of the flood damage,” he equivocated when it came to this storm.

“Certainly since I’ve been Governor, you game plan different types of scenarios that are going to the state. And a major hurricane into Tampa Bay, given how vulnerable it is to storm surge, how low lying it is, is one of the most significant events that we can respond to.”

DeSantis cautioned that “it’s too early to say whether this is definitely going to go in and hit Tampa Bay.”

“Clearly, there are models that suggest that it will. Obviously, we are proceeding and assuming that that’s something that may happen. But I think it’s too soon to say. There’s a lot of uncertainty with this storm,” the Governor said.

Ahead of Hurricane Helene, DeSantis was not pessimistic about the state insurance market, describing it as being in “good shape.”

“We had a major last year with Idalia. It was a Category 3, close to Category 4. And in 2024 so far, I think we’ve had 57 companies file either no increases or reduction in rates. That is not happening in very many states around this country,” the Governor said while briefing reporters on storm impacts.

“You have people that are actually increasing their exposure in the state of Florida. And I think part of it is obviously we had to do some reforms a year and a half ago that put us more in line with how these markets function in other states, and I think that’s attractive.”

Ahead of the storm season in May, the Office of Insurance Regulation reassured people of what Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky called a “strengthened and reliable insurance market for policyholders.”

DeSantis has warned about Citizens’ bloat in the past. He noted in 2022 that Citizens Property Insurance was “unfortunately undercapitalized” and that the company could go “belly up” if it had to weather a significant storm.

The Governor also made news last year when he suggested that homeowners should “knock on wood” and hope the state didn’t get hit by a hurricane.

But whereas he extolled the benefits of new construction ahead of Helene, this time around, with a Category 5 storm in the Gulf, he’s not quite so bullish on the buoyancy of the insurance sector.

He also did not suggest people in the storm’s path “knock on wood” on Monday either.