Citizens in your wallet

[Bob]

Last year, if you owned a home in Florida and carried homeowner's insurance, you paid a 6.8 percent surcharge to make up Citizen's Property Insurance 500 million dollar plus shortfall. This year you will be forced to pay 15.4 percent on top of your existing policy. Does this get anyone's attention?? Tom Gallagher was the single biggest proponent of this abomination of a law. Please remember this when this meglomaniac runs for governor soon. Unless, of course, you think this is a great deal....like seawalls.

 

[Bob]

alrighty then..........

 

[Miss Kitty]

alrighty then..........

God love ya' Bob! I just don't know what to say...like my hands are tied, ya' know?! Please know I am a fan!

 

[SGB]

Considering my wind insurance with Citizens DOUBLED this year, 15.4% sounds cheap! Of course the 15.4% is probably in addition to the 100% increase. BTW - I heard a news report last night that said that a church that has not yet received a check from Citizens for damage from Ivan, is now suing Citizens.

 

[TooFarTampa]

Citizens is horrendous. So poorly managed it's a joke.

I could cite numerous stupid things they've have done in our dealings with them, but this week took the cake. They actually sent us a duplicate refund check of one they already sent us 2 months ago!

What idiots. I'm tempted to send it to the insurance commisioner, with a complete list of the idiot things they have done, both in our favor (stupidly) and -- mostly -- not in our favor. There must be no oversight. I'm not sure that would do a bit of good though. Maybe I'll just bank it and let it earn interest until they decide they want it back.

Look, I'm a very ethical person. I even told our management company that they overpaid us $200 a couple of months ago. But I almost feel irresponsible giving them back their money since they are obviously idiots and don't know how to handle it properly. Maybe give it to the Red Cross?

The whole organization needs an overhaul, and somebody has to come up with a better solution than this. Period. Meantime, there is no solution other than the surcharge. It's criminal but it is the law, and the lawmakers better find some way quickly to fix this. If there is a gubenatorial candidate with a great idea, he gets my vote.

 

[Bob]

Considering my wind insurance with Citizens DOUBLED this year, 15.4% sounds cheap! Of course the 15.4% is probably in addition to the 100% increase. BTW - I heard a news report last night that said that a church that has not yet received a check from Citizens for damage from Ivan, is now suing Citizens.

I obviously picked the wrong venue to rant, as the 15.4% has me paying for your home. I guess we are all closet socialists in one way or another.

 

[Miss Kitty]

I obviously picked the wrong venue to rant, as the 15.4% has me paying for your home. I guess we are all closet socialists in one way or another.

Please explain....I get lost easily on these topics.

 

[SGB]

I obviously picked the wrong venue to rant, as the 15.4% has me paying for your home. I guess we are all closet socialists in one way or another.

I misunderstood your original message. Yep, you're right, if you have to pay to bail out a wind insurance company and you don't have wind insurance, the insurance racket is very screwed up. For the record, I've never filed a claim with Citizens, so I've never seen a penny from them. I do ,however, pay very high premiums to a company that sounds like it doesn't know how to manage anything, including their (my, our) money. It seems that the cost for all types of insurance is going through the roof and we have no control, and the service is getting worse.

 

[Bob]

I misunderstood your original message. Yep, you're right, if you have to pay to bail out a wind insurance company and you don't have wind insurance, the insurance racket is very screwed up. For the record, I've never filed a claim with Citizens, so I've never seen a penny from them. I do ,however, pay very high premiums to a company that sounds like it doesn't know how to manage anything, including their (my, our) money. It seems that the cost for all types of insurance is going through the roof and we have no control, and the service is getting worse.

It's ok by me to help others who live by the coast, as this too will be my situation, it just seems reasonable for the state to make up for the shortfall out of general tax revenue. This law needs to be changed as the burden of payment is too narrowly focused. Sueshore, in Florida, you pay for your homeowner's insurance plus you pay a surcharge if Citizen's[the state's 2nd largest insurer] runs a deficit. 04 deficit was 515 million/ 05 deficit is over 1 billion.

 

[Beach Runner]

So, should we go with Citizens for wind and ASI for fire/casualty, or spend a couple of thousand more dollars for Lexington that includes fire/casualty/wind?