Preliminary estimates for Citizens Property Insurance Corp. have the company expecting upwards of 225,000 claims after Ian hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane last week.
The damages and losses incurred are estimated between $1.9 and $3.7 billion, according to Citizens Insurance spokesperson Michael Peltier.
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“We are financially stable. We have the ability to take care of all claims,” Peltier said. “We’ve got the people in place. We’ve got the infrastructure in place to handle a major storm like this. We don’t expect with the projections we have so far that we would be levying any surcharges or assessments at this point.”
Citizens Insurance now has just under 1.1 million policies in Florida, about 13% of the market share.
In the last four weeks, they have added nearly 10,000 policies per week.
The company is state backed, which basically means supported by Florida taxpayers.
If Citizens Insurance exhausts its surplus and its ability to pay claims, by law the company would assess or increase rates for its policyholders first.
“And then to other Florida insurance consumers in the event we have a deficit to pay claims. We don’t think we are going to get to that point here with this storm at this time,” Peltier said.
The company said it is financially sound enough to handle another major storm this year if it happened.
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