As Citizens undergoes depopulation, some homeowners face higher premiums

Roberto Ortiz has lived in his Weston home for the past 22 years.

“I moved here for a job and stayed,” he said.  

But now that he is about seven years from retirement, he worries about whether he can keep calling South Florida home. In fact, he is unsure if he will be able to retire here.

“I don’t think this is feasible,” he said. “I think I’m going to have to move.”

Just two years ago, Roberto was paying $2,512 to insure his home. But that all changed toward the end of 2023.

“In November, I got a letter from my insurance saying they’re leaving the state and they’re not going to renew any policies,” he said. “So I start looking and the only one who would insure me would be Citizens.”

So he signed up with Citizens and his new premium was $5,369 – over $2,800 more than he was paying. About a month later, he received another letter, this time from Citizens.

“Saying, ‘hey, there’s a private company that’s willing to insure you for just 20% more than you’re paying now,’” he said.

So later this year, in November, Roberto says his policy will move to that other company.

“And that’s going to be triple what I was paying two years ago,” he said. “We’re going to be $6,000 and something.”

Citizens currently has 1.18 million policies statewide – 358,104 of those policies are in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties.  The state’s insurer of last resort has been undergoing “depopulation” – a push to reduce those numbers. A spokesperson told NBC6 that since January of 2023, more than 360,000 policies have been transferred to private insurance companies, with the approval of state regulators.

“What they’re trying to do is bring down their risk exposure,” said Mark Friedlander, of the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group.

Just last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Citizens was not solvent.

“Citizens will never go insolvent,” Friedlander said. “It’s not going out of business. All of their claims are covered one way or another.”

Friedlander said there are reasons to be hopeful because new insurance companies are signing up to write policies in Florida.

“The market is heading in the right direction,” he said. “You may not feel it now based on your latest renewal bill, which probably went up again this year, but better days are coming.”

For Roberto, those better days can’t come soon enough.  His biggest fear is getting priced out of the market.

“I thought, ‘Hey, once you own your home, you’re good,’” he said. “But it doesn’t seem to be like that.”