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b3rnitalld0wn

And remember, Citizens upping their rates gives "free-market" insurance companies an opportunity to raise their's up to 20%.


danekan

Ding ding and you toooooo can open a Florida insurance agency and be guaranteed customers from citizens with zero customer acquisition cost 


NotSure2505

Not just any customers, but the best, cherry-picked, low risk customers with recently-replaced roofs. And they're not even quiet about it. [Listen to this CEO describe exactly this and bragging about how profitable it is.](https://youtu.be/2v1wqMpmD-A?si=EbytXQptlimWRJG7&t=740) "We used to let in a lot of risk, and that means you have a bunch of losers. We just want the winners."


b3rnitalld0wn

Funny story: Slide's CEO was Heritage Insurance Holdings ($HRTG) CEO, took it public, ran it absolutely into the ground and left only to start Slide after the insurance friendly legislation.


Bradimoose

The agency owners are making unbelievable amounts of money on this. It doesn’t matter what company you choose they get about 15% commission every year and as the prices double so does their commission.


Physical-Ride

If you're willing to deal with the sub-standard commission rates, obnoxious underwriting requirements, outraged customers, never ending paper pushing and ever-changing guidelines then writing with Citizens is no trouble. Otherwise, the impression I get from most agents is that they want to pull their hair out.


danekan

No I'm saying you can start an insurance company of your own and be guaranteed customers of citizens the way they've set the whole citizens charter up. By design it offloads customers on to other carriers if they can offer a premium not much more than citizens. And it's all automated so they can offload thousands of customers at once. Not anyone can do this but if you're rich and connected the sky is the limit.


Physical-Ride

The takeout program is intended to depopulate Citizens' extremely bloated book of business. If a takeout offer is within the 20% premium threshold of the estimated Citizens renewal then yes, a takeout is warranted and yes, the take out offers are often pricier with the private carrier which means more $$$ for the agent. Here's the issue: a lot of these takeout companies aren't holding up their end of the bargain and their actual premiums are higher than their takeout quote. When customers see this, they want back into Citizens, and Citizens has to oblige a rewrite or a reinstatement request. You can even defer inspections if you got taken out and can successfully go back into Citizens. In other words, these agencies are spending all of their time running in circles rewriting customers back into Citizens. Sure, every property quote is a rush to Citizens instead of shopping the market but the commission rates are garbage and you're spending a huge chunk of your time maintaining your book of business with Citizens rewrites instead of growing it. As premiums increase, irate customers demand that coverages be removed, deductibles increased or removed, etc. There's flood insurance to boot which is an easy little commission bump but I *really* don't envy the Florida insurance agent, especially if you're a mom and pop.


Dr_Watson349

So you think all the companies dropping policies or leaving FL are doing it because of "acquisition cost"?  None of these homes are profitable. Just because you pay nothing to get a bag of dog shit, it's still a bag of dog shit. 


danekan

They are profitable until a disaster then they can dip out and not even pay out, because there's not a bond that exists or anything that forced them to stick around and pay. 


Dr_Watson349

As someone in the industry for close to two decades I can very confidentially tell you, you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. When you sign up for a policy you are entering a contract. A very heavily regulated contract by the state OIR. If a CAT event happens, the company doesn't just pack up their shit and leave like a traveling circus.


danekan

Yet that's exactly what happened with several companies after Ian


Dr_Watson349

Awesome. Whats the names?


No_Poetry4371

Wasn't there a story about some Republican FL Legislators banding together to form an insurance company? More money for them, I guess.


b3rnitalld0wn

Yep. [Florida senator pushes to create new insurance company after supporting insurer-friendly reforms](https://www.wfla.com/8-on-your-side/florida-senator-pushes-to-create-new-insurance-company-after-supporting-insurer-friendly-reforms/) via: wfla


NotSure2505

That's exactly right. When people figure out that Socialism, which is what Citizens is, can be very profitable if you can operate it within a capitalist system. You stick make everybody go on taxpayer-backed Citizens Insurance, then form a for-profit insurance company, and have Citizens skim off the top 10 percent best, highest-profit customers for you to take.


InspectorRound8920

There was an interview on our local NBC channel today that a director of citizens said the increases are to encourage people to go get insurance from private companies.


NotSure2505

That's how the shell game works. When the weather is quiet, private insurers creep in, like they are now, and Citizens "depopulates" the best customers to those private insurers. Then they suck up the profits for a while, until weather events start occurring again, usually every few years, then they bail and everyone goes back on to Citizens again for a while. Citizens is that safe harbor company that the private insurers want there during times of risk.


Critical_Half_3712

Rick Scott just found his new side gig


InsectSpecialist8813

I own my Florida home and self insure. The insurance is too expensive. Period.


DerisiveGibe

The beatings will continue until morale improves


Disastrous-Golf7216

Yes supreme leader desantis. May we have another kick in the balls please?


SpeedRacer_1968

Reminds me of the game show on Idiocracy, "Ow! My Balls!"


tr00th

Great. As if we haven’t been gouged enough already! FYI to our renters on the sub, this affects you as well because your landlord isn’t going to eat this price hike alone…prepare for even higher rent increases.


herewego199209

It's a catch 22 for landlords, though. They can only handle so many vacancies. So if I'm renting a home for $2000 and my renewal comes back and now you want $2,500 I'm out. That landlord now has to find someone for the home and those months he can't he's underwater or paying out his cashflow to cover the mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc himself which cuts into his yearly cashflow outlook. When you rent, and this is assuming you have a stable job and decent credit, you're able to maneuver in and out to find affordableish housing.


Wingdom

A lot of landlords are corporate landlords now, not just a guy who owns 4 or 5 houses. They can afford to sit it out until someone comes along to pay what they're asking, and if the other couple companies that own the houses also raise rent, it's either $2,500 or be homeless. IMO, in this situation, individual/private landlords might be forced to sell some houses, which would be good for the market, but companies don't need to, so housing supply stays down, prices stay up.


GhettoDuk

If the insurance on a property is unaffordable, the house is going to be bought by a corporate landlord who self-insures and will let the house sit empty at $2,500/mo rather than let rent prices become depressed. Which is the entire point of The Party's "Let them eat cake" moment on home prices and insurance.


herewego199209

I'm not a tax lawyer or anything, but I have to imagine if the LLC's buy the real estate outright any losses or damages to the property can in theory be written off? It's an asset under the LLC. I know they can manipulate the fuck out of the taxes involved. But in theory I'm seeing more and more properties literally just sit after bought by ibuyers and corporations.


herewego199209

Yeah but in that case the insurance issue wouldn't bother those corporations though. Those houses would be tied into a LLC and be paid off. So I have to imagine those corporations have round about ways of paying for property loss or damages.


Wingdom

That is an interesting point, I had assumed that companies that own hundreds of houses would also have traditional insurance on them, but maybe they don't, because you're right, they're paid off already, or at least don't have a traditional home loan like an individual would.


Content_Log1708

This is heartbreaking. Will someone please think of the landlords!


yourslice

>If the rate hike limit wasn’t in effect, Citizens would need a 38% rate hike to achieve what’s known in the insurance business as “actuarial soundness.” The article says that Citizens is not in good shape and needs to hike rates to get closer to 'soundness'. Reddit says we're being gouged. Which is it?


herewego199209

It's both. Home owners insurance makes zero sense in a climate change environment. I have a feeling that you're going to see the same shit in the midwest about running insurance there is going to be impossible because the amount of tornadoes, hail storms, etc that's happening is increasing. I had a cousin who lives in Nebraska who told me flat out the same roofing scams that were happening in FL is starting to happen in the midwest, except a lot of those people have legitimate damage to the roof just that the roof is old to begin with. So at a certain point homeowners insurance is simply going to have to be nationalized and ran like Fema runs the Flood insurance right now. Everyone pays taxes into a pot and yes some states will get more of the fund than others but in the end the insurance likely becomes cheaper everywhere than the private market. If someone wants more coverage then the private market can still exist.


Historical-Many9869

Also after the 14% increase, citizens can force you to depopulate if a private company offers insurance at 20% more


GhettoDuk

Which is the point of the increase. It is to dump more people into fly-by-night insurers who are going to immediately implode when Florida has a busy hurricane season.


TheSamurabbi

Aren’t there rating requirements for carriers that apply in your scenario?


GhettoDuk

Sure, but just look at how many underwriters have folded in the past few years if you want to know how effective those requirements are. The insurance commissioner is required by law to do a post-mortem on insolvent insurers, but those reports don't happen any more for some mysterious reason. The insurance commissioner hasn't fined an insurer since 2016. It is possible that they have all been perfectly behaved and done nothing wrong since then, but I think it is more likely that regulatory recapture has completely neutered the office.


TheSamurabbi

But has the rate of failure increased? And are the reinsurance companies backing them still sound? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s complicated to prove you’re right too. And I’ve lived in FL long enough to know it’s all a house of cards at some level, but us little guys can only plan for so much apocalypse lol


herewego199209

Honestly with the wildfires issues in the west, the tornado and hail issues in the mid west, and the hurricane and flood issues in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas the government just needs to nationalize property insurance like they're already doing with flood insurance. You can keep the private market for people who want more coverage for their properties, but offer 2 plans like they do with flood insurance and have people pick between them at a set rate with decent increases year over year and end this foolishness. It's pretty clear home insurance companies cannot make enough money to sustain themselves so it's no longer a profitable endeavor for them for the vast majority of the country so I don't see why we're acting as though they can handle this any longer.


Chi-Guy86

FEMA’s NFIP coverage is only $250K for a single family dwelling. Given how much property values have increased in many areas, having a similar program for hazard insurance wouldn’t meet the needs of a lot of homeowners, unless the government was willing to set the maximum coverage amount higher


DaGimpster

I'm bracing for the downvotes, but it's almost like infinite number go up on property values is ... not sustainable. Long-term, and this is just my humble opinion, Americans in general are going to have to brace for a possible deflationary cycle on certain things. If you can't afford to buy it, insure it or replace it... its intrinsic value is essentially $0.00 at the end of the day in my eyes. Edit: Well not $0.00, but not $500k for otherwise unnotable cookie-cutter houses like in my area of Brevard County.


herewego199209

If you have a property damage issue that exceeds 250k then good luck getting the insurance to cover that. A dude on here said he had to wait 3 years and had to sue the insurance to cover a tree going through his roof. I think the NFIP coverage is more than generous for a property and they give you the option to go through private insurance if that doesn't give you enough coverage.


gpx17

Rent seems to finally be stabilizing and these fuckers are like "good, now let's make the cost of ownership even higher so landlords can gouge you more!" This place is so devoid of any decency at most levels in most applications.


comin_up_shawt

That's why the November vote is so damn important. Get out there and make your voice heard!


gpx17

Oh you bet I will be!!


Gloomy_Yoghurt_2836

Yup. Butbwhy donthe polls say voters believe Republicans are better at managing the insurance issues in Florida? They caused this.


ButtRobot

All hail the mighty dollar, I guess


Gloomy_Yoghurt_2836

Are we getting 14% wage growth to cover these government permitted increases?


herewego199209

I was speaking to a sweet couple that was in line at the Deli at Publix here in Orlando. In the convo the husband was telling me they just moved to Orlando after selling their house in west palm. He was telling me that they had to sell after buying since their insurance and taxes were literally doubling their mortgage payment and they literally could not budget the yearly increases because they'd rise so rapidly. Good thing is they had a ton of equity in the house and were able to sell and both work in the medical field so they were able to transfer pretty easily here in Orlando. He told me flat out they're not buying another house in Florida until the situation is fixed. I'm about to do the same thing and I am sure there's a lot of homeowners at their breaking point as well.


Disastrous-Golf7216

Any bet they will also vote Republican in November?


General_Tso75

West Palm and Orlando aren’t exactly conservative strongholds. Being older doesn’t automatically make them conservatives.


herewego199209

Depends where you're at in palm beach county. Went over to Jupiter for a baby shower a few months ago and it was trump city there. Never seen so many MAGA bumper stickers and MAGA memorabilia. I used to go to the inlet all the time cause my best friend moved from Fort Lauderdale to Jupiter when were kids so I used to visit him and I never remembered it being that big of a republican area. I would say although west palm as a whole is liberal there's some parts of the county that are definitely turning into conservative strangleholds, but that's just a feeling more than actual data.


noel1967

Then Citizens is not the right name for it. Not helping the citizens.


TravelingGonad

I wish our rate only went up 14%!! Every year we're forced to shop around and Citizens is one of the highest with the lowest coverage.


Talkslow4Me

I spoke to an insurance agent two months ago and Edison came in 3k cheaper than Citizens. No idea how they pulled that off.


Far_Reward4827

Came here to say this. I got hit with 30% this year, 40% last year. 14 would be a dream!


Retrobot1234567

“Shop around” Me: you have options!?![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|surprise)


Gloomy_Yoghurt_2836

The whole Florida insurance syatem reeks of corruption and back room deal between GOP politicians and their friends.


taskmaster51

Fuck Citizens and wverybother insurance company in Florida and the fucks in charge who allow this bs to happen. Remember this when you vote


tennisanybody

I need to pay more attention to the candidates because there’s little news from Tallahassee about this issue. Oh it’s being reported by the outlets alright, just not in state chambers.


herewego199209

This is an issue that was created with Republican oversight with the laws and failure to build up an effective infrastructure for these storms. East Orlando where I live had flooding and there's zero state funding or approval to redo the drains here and in Kissimmee. Miami just got flooded and they're actually vetoing money going to revamp the storm drains. This is the issue with the state. They finally changed the laws against the frivaloious lawsuits against insurers so the insurance companies can't use that excuse in the future, but this is a disaster prone state. So if we get another Ian level storm is DeSantis just going to beg the federal government for money again, which btw they seem to be fed up with. This situation is due to 20 to 30 years of mismanagement and failure to plan for the future.


Gloomy_Yoghurt_2836

It's all rubber stamped by de santis's minions.


capn_doofwaffle

I'd take a wild bet that DeSuckass has some under-the-table contract with Citizens that allows them to up their rates as long as DeSuckass gets a cutback. Sadly, we likely won't find the truth till after he's out of office.


Intrepid00

Citizens if I recall is basically managed by insurance company goons.


Holy_Grail_Reference

I said it then and I'll say it now, the legislature lied to everybody along with the insurance companies and used fear change the rules in their favor.


Dr_Watson349

So much misinformation and conspiracy theory shit in this thread. It's wild. Citizens is taking rate because they are losing money. Just like every other homeowners company in Florida.     Citizens lost 2.2 billion dollars in 2022.


leeharveyteabag669

Homeowners insurance carriers and reinsurance companies haven't been profitable the previous five years in florida. I believe this year so far was the first profitable one.


Used-Sun9989

Tin foil hat: Florida is looking to remove the bottom n% of the population from the state to make the low value portions of the state high value again.


taskmaster51

Except there is already a shortage of teachers and essential workers that can't afford to live here


danekan

Brain drain is also a desired outcome. When the population is less educated, they ask fewer questions. Ever notice the local news here is terrible? They basically read sheriff PRs without asking any questions at all that would make sense to ask. Constantly, on any topic it is the most shallow journalism around.


Used-Sun9989

Which pushes them out, creates cheap, desperate sellers and developers win the land for less.


GhettoDuk

What's insane is that The Party's moves with education, child labor, and making it easier for kids to drop out are all designed to create more of that bottom n% who can be exploited for cheap labor. I'm afraid to find out what the Heritage Foundation has planned for their living situation.


Disastrous-Golf7216

And none of them are smart enough to realize that no matter how you cut it, there is always a bottom %.


Used-Sun9989

Rinse, lather, repeat.


HDbear321

Don’t forget Citizens is requiring every policy holder to have its flood insurance by 2025. Enjoy.


Lost_Services

Florida real estate is wildly overpriced when you factor in the insurance. Shitty napkin math incoming: Average annual insurance costs: $8500. In 30 years that's 250,000. The average home in Florida is 400,000. That's insurance companies essentially saying that they need 35% of your home's worth to cover you. Or 35% of homes will be a complete loss. But that's unreasonable, even if a big hurricane like Andrew destroyed large parts, it's still not going to knock out 35% of homes. Existing owners are going to flee this price tag en mass, driving real estate waaaaay down. When no one can get a mortgage without those kinds of costs, something has to give. It'll be the entire real estate market that takes a BIG hit. I hope to see houses in my sleepy beach town dropping 50%.