Florida Homeowners Fighting New Insurance Increases

It’s no secret that South Florida homes have become increasingly expensive to insurance since 2005’s busy hurricane season.

Homeowners have decided to act and are circulating a petition that has made rounds throughout homes from the Florida Keys to the Panhandle.

Among other things the petition seeks lower rates, tougher building codes statewide, and a strong lobbying effort for a national catastrophe fund, according the Miami Herald.

Citizens; the largest insurer in the State holds 1.3 million policies, half of those are in the South Florida area. With the new state law that requires insurance companies to increase its reserves so it has enough money available to cover claims from a large storm, means increases starting as early as March.

The group Insurance Reform Now organized by mortgage banker Sherri Hudson is drafting a list of possible solutions such as eliminating the provision in that new state law that calls for large premium increases in Citizens’ rates; creating preventive measures that would not allow for long-term policy holders to have their policies cancelled; the creation of a national or regional catastrophe fund, and the creation of formal regulations that call for gradual rate increases.