TheFloridaCurrent.com
By Gray Rohrer
February 23, 2012
Legislation to all but eliminate regular assessments on property insurance premiums after a catastrophic storm by instead increasing emergency assessments passed through the Florida House on Thursday by an 89-25 vote.
Under HB 1127 regular assessments, which are placed on customers of private companies after 15 percent assessments on customers of state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. are exhausted after a storm, would be eliminated for commercial and personal lines accounts, which now stand at 6 percent. Assessments on coastal lines accounts would be reduced from 6 percent to 2 percent. The money to be recouped from policy holders would be moved to emergency assessments, which are applied to the premiums of both Citizens and non-Citizens customers.
Rep. Ben Albritton, R-Bartow, noted that private insurance companies are now required to pay the regular assessments to Citizens within one month, while emergency assessments can be recovered over a longer period of time. In discussion of the bill Wednesday, he stressed the legislation wouldn’t affect Citizens’ surplus or ability to pay claims quickly.
“This bill does not in any way limit Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s ability to pay their claims on time,” Albritton said.
Although Democrats asked a few questions of Albritton about the bill Wednesday, there was no debate Thursday as the bill passed largely along party lines.
The Senate version of the bill, SB 1346, passed through two committees last month, but with a little more than two weeks left in the legislative session it has not come up for a vote in the Budget Committee, its last stop before heading to the floor.
Reporter Gray Rohrer can be reached at grohrer@thefloridacurrent.com.
