hurricane insurance

House committee approves hurricane insurance bill

(maimiherald) - With less than four full weeks left in the 2009 session, lawmakers started moving legislation Friday aimed at reducing a multibillion dollar property insurance risk politicians have laid on Florida consumers and taxpayers.

After running through more than a dozen amendments, the Insurance, Business and Financial Affairs Committee approved a bill to make the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. a last-resort insurer. The measure would also draw down the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund obligations by several billion dollars.

“We’ve got a problem,” Catastrophe Fund manager Jack Nicholson told the committee. “Solvency could be an issue.”

Neither Citizens, which has about 1.1 million policies, or the Catastrophe Fund have enough money to pay claims if a major hurricane - or series of damaging storms in highly populated areas - hits Florida this year.

The state has escaped serious hurricane damage the past three years.

But a solution to reduce the financial liability for taxpayers and insurance consumers has been elusive for just as long while the risk on Florida taxpayers grows in part as a result of a global recession.

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