Governor DeSantis Signs Senate Bill Meant to Stabilize Home Insurance Market
Governor DeSantis signs the bill "holding Big Tech accountable" in Miami Monday. Photo via NBC2 News.
TALLAHASSEE – (FNN) Governor DeSantis signed Senate Bill 76 in Sarasota Friday, making changes to Florida’s home insurance market.
Some of SB76 provisions include:
- Prohibiting certain practices by contractors.
- Prohibiting contractors from executing a contract with a residental propoerty owner for a roofing repair or replacement unless a certain notice is included.
- Requiring property insures, effective on a certain date, to include certain data regarding closed claims in their annual report to the Office of Insurance Regulation.
- Requiring the Office of Insurance Regulation to consider certain costs in determining whether payments made by an insurer to an affiliate are fair and reasonable.
- Requiring the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to include the costs of catastrophe reinsurance to its projected 100-year propable maximum loss in its rate calculations even if the Corporation does no purchase such reinsurance.
Governor DeSantis said in a press conference on Friday, “over the last decade, Florida has seen major premium increases and some homeowners had their policies cancelled and were dumped onto Citizens.” He is hopeful this bill will stabilize the market and bring in some more private sector companies to the state.
Senator Jim Boyd (R-21) and another co-sponsor of the bill said in the same press conference that between 2013-2020 $15 billion was paid in claims, but 71% of that money went to lawyers.
Senator Boyd said he is hopeful that in 12 to 18 months we should start to see homeowners insurance rates starting to come down.
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Lynn DeJarnette is a contributing writer for Florida National News, part of the FNN News Network. | info@floridanationalnews.com