DeSantis Indicates Support for Special Session to Address Property Insurance Market
April 12, 2022 Updated 2:20 P.M. ET
TALLAHASSEE (FCV) – Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he supports a special session to address property insurance problems in Florida.
The comments come after State Senator Jeff Brandes urged a special session when lawmakers did not address the issue during the 2022 regular session.
“Florida’s private property insurance market has collapsed, and it is evident we must call a special session to address this dire situation,” Brandes said in the letter to Senate President Wilton Simpson and Speaker Chris Sprowls on March 6th.
DeSantis said Tuesday he is working with Senators to create options to “stabilize this market.”
“There’s a number of problems with what’s going on. Part of it, just to be frank, we’re at the worst inflation in 40 years and so everything is going up,” DeSantis said.
Brandes said more than 800,000 homeowners cannot find insurance aside from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.
“With the 2022 hurricane season quickly approaching and an unstable market, the Legislature chose to leave homeowners exposed to a perfect storm of rising rates, limited coverage, and diminishing options,” Brandes said.
The Governor wants to look at where people are taking advantage of the system.
“For example, we have parts of the state that haven’t really been hit from a storm in the last number of years, and we have massive litigation, massive roof claims, guess what? I mean that is going to drive the cost up when you have that,” DeSantis explained.
DeSantis said there are “underlying dysfunctions” in the state market causing some companies to fail and insurance rates to go up.
“We’re seeing there are going to be problems in the reinsurance market. Is there anything we can do short term to try to stabilize those rates so more companies don’t fail?” he said.
DeSantis does not believe legislation will be ready for next week’s special session on redistricting but implied that there could be another special session to address the issue before July 1st, the start of the next fiscal year.
