Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort, saw its policy count surge to nearly 1.229 million by the end of last week, as Florida braces for the peak of hurricane season.
The company, which has become the state’s largest property insurer due to private insurers shedding policies and raising rates, had 1,228,928 policies as of Friday, marking a steady increase over the past two weeks.
Read: National Hurricane Center Monitoring Atlantic Disturbance Eyeing Florida
Despite a “depopulation” program designed to shift policies to the private market, which helped reduce Citizens’ policy count from a peak of 1.412 million in fall 2023, the insurer’s growth has resumed as hurricane season intensifies.
Citizens officials predict that private insurers are unlikely to take on new policies during the summer and early fall, but CEO Tim Cerio remains optimistic about the depopulation program’s effectiveness, projecting that Citizens could have fewer than 1 million policies by year’s end.
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