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What Citizens will cost you

By JONI JAMES
Published December 17, 2005

Knowing the average rate hike an insurance company is proposing doesn't mean a lot if you live in the Tampa Bay region, where two major variables - shorelines and sinkholes - can throw a major twist into the equation.

Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer for those who can't find property coverage on the open market, said this week it is seeking, by mid 2006, to raise homeowners' rates an average of 45 percent.

The reality locally will be far more shocking for many Citizens customers: Those with homeowners policies who live on Pasco County's coast will see a 139 percent hike if the two-step proposal is implemented as Citizens proposed. Customers in the rest of the county will also pay a good deal more: 67 percent.

Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday echoed what other state leaders have said: There's no easy fix for skyrocketing rates after two back-to-back hurricane seasons. Even an option that looked promising after Hurricane Katrina - the creation of a national reinsurance fund to backstop insurers in all catastrophes making them more willing to write policies - has floundered on Capitol Hill.

"We're working on it but I haven't seen any of the leadership of Congress embrace the idea yet and that's a bad sign," Bush said.

Property owners who rely on Citizens Property Insurance only for their windstorm coverage face rate increases of an average of 79.8 percent statewide. In the Tampa Bay area, windstorm-only policies would rise 76 percent on average for coastal Pinellas County residents, 17 percent for coastal Pasco County residents and 24 percent for coastal Hernando County residents.

[Last modified December 17, 2005, 01:00:13]