The insurer created by the State of Florida for properties the market refuses, which became the state's largest homeowners insurer as private capacity withdrew.
Citizens is a corporation created by Florida statute to offer cover to owners who cannot find a private insurer, at regulated rates set below market. It is designed as a transitional last resort, with a depopulation mechanism through which private insurers take policies back when they judge them profitable. Its growth is therefore a direct measure of private market failure, and its swelling after a run of hurricanes, unusually costly roof litigation and the withdrawal of several carriers took it to first place in the state. The point insurance must watch is deficit funding: if losses exceed its resources, Citizens can levy assessments on policyholders across the whole state, including those insured elsewhere, which amounts to mutualizing coastal risk across the population after the event. A last-resort insurer whose rates are politically contained is thus not neutral for the private market, since it competes with the very rates it is meant to backstop.
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation passed 1.2 million policies in 2023, becoming Florida's largest homeowners insurer, after several private carriers withdrew or failed over the preceding two years.
Citizens, assureur public de Floride, Florida Citizens