TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As property insurance skyrocketed for Floridians and Hurricanes Ian and Nicole worsened the blow, Florida lawmakers are gearing up for a special session in December to hopefully provide relief for homeowners.
A memorandum issued in November announced a special session could convene during the week of Dec. 12-16.
Lawmakers will have much to sort through as the already chaotic Florida property insurance market surged leaving many homeowners scrambling for protection after more than a dozen companies stopped writing new policies in the state.
Hurricane Ian did not help.
"We estimate Hurricane Ian will be the second largest US catastrophe on record," Mark Friedlander of the Insurance Information Institute said in an October interview. "We’re projecting an insured loss in excess of $60 billion."
Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-FL) has previously said he’d like to see the governor assemble a task force to come up with concrete ideas to help stabilize the market.
"The task force needs to be put together in the next two to three weeks," he said. "I think they need to be given a deadline of about a month to get everything done, and then I would expect that they would call a special session and be done before January."
Friedlander says, your property insurance rates are likely going up, despite the fact that lawmakers are set to take some action to try and stabilize the market.
"There’s nothing we see that will stabilize Florida’s insurance market in the short-term," he said. "Realistically, the cycle is 12 to 18 months before we would see significant impacts in the marketplace."
Friedlander says while there is no quick fix. The main focal points that legislators need to touch on will be roof claim fraud and getting a handle on excessive litigation in the state.
"Nothing the legislature could do right now could be an immediate fix, but we do need to take first steps to begin the road to stability," he said.