2022 Hurricane Could be the Tipping Point for Florida Insurance Market

Recently, a representative of the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) warned that a significant storm during this year’s hurricane season could lead to “a massive failure of Florida insurers that would be on a historic level.”

Citizens Property, which is Florida’s insurer of last resort, currently has more than 907,000 policies and is expected to cross the 1million policy threshold before the end of the year. The state has been lucky in the past three years, avoiding a direct hit from a hurricane but if that changes this year, the homeowners insurance industry could face a massive crisis.

Four insurers have left the Florida market since February and the average premium in Florida is predicted to hit $4,231 this year, which is almost three times the US annual average of $1,544, according to the Triple-I.

Lawsuits are the major reason that insurers are struggling in the state. Florida accounts for 79 percent of all homeowner insurance lawsuits across the entire nation. While the state legislature has attempted to fix the issue, they have failed so far, and experts warn that even if they manage to solve the issues it could be years before the insurance market returns to something resembling normal.

Due to the fact that the market is already struggling, a major storm could be the tipping point that pushes the Florida insurance market over the edge.

In a recent Insurance Business magazine article, Mark Friedlander, Triple-I corporate communications director, said “a severe storm on the level of 2017’s Irma or 2018’s Michael could lead to a surge of carrier insolvencies and result in what would be the largest failure of private insurers in US property casualty history.”

“Five or more insurers could potentially fail from just one significant storm event, and that’s on top of the four that have already gone insolvent this year,” Friedlander said in the recent Insurance Business article.

“We’ve never seen a situation where that many insurers failed in such a short timeframe, the previous mark was set in 1992, after Hurricane Andrew, when we saw seven domestic insurers fail – and of course, that was before there were hurricane deductibles, Friedlander continued in the article.

Many insurers have already left the market

In June, Southern Fidelity moved into bankruptcy when it failed to receive a high enough rating from Demotech, mainly due to its inability to purchase reinsurance coverage.

Several other insurers have become insolvent since February of this year, the list includes Lighthouse Property Insurance Company (St Johns Insurance, and Avatar Property & Casualty Insurance Company.

“It seems like just in the last month alone after the special session, that the Florida insurance market is careening off a cliff,” Friedlander said in the Insurance Business.

The top 10 Florida insurance companies are struggling with only two posting a profit last year according to data supplied by Citizens. Three of those insurers suffered net losses of over $100 million. All of this has led many insurers to leave the Florida market.

“Almost every week now, we have heard companies announce they are putting, at the very least, a moratorium on writing new business until the market stabilizes,” Friedlander said in the Insurance Business article. 

While Florida hopes to avoid a major hurricane for the fourth year in a row, their luck may be running out. According to Colorado State University, this year will be a “well-above-average” Atlantic Hurricane season.

“We’re seeing conditions already in the tropical Atlantic that are somewhat disturbing for June,” Friedlander said in the article. “We’re just getting started [with the] hurricane season – we don’t really get to the peak until typically mid-August through mid-October, so it is very concerning, considering the condition of the marketplace.”