FL Residents--Does it bother you that...

[Lisa loves Pooh]

So who is typically insured by Citizens? Is it middle and upper class people who choose to build expensive homes near the beach or poor people who can only afford a mobile home (which very few, if any, standard companies would insure)?

That stinks.

I just see more insurers leaving Florida as a result. If the policy is going to be an extra $500...who's going to want to pay that...they'll shop around...maybe even switch to Citizen's.

Great when others are paying for your coverage.

 

[CharlesTD]

Ok not from there but out of curiosity what do your average car and home owners insurance rates cost you? Up here insurance on your car is mandatory you have to alteast cary PLPD coverage (liability) our rates are quite high and we do not have provine run insurance in Ontario our homeowners insurance is currently at about 450.00 dollars a year and our auto insurance is over 2 grand a year almost 3 grand for a car and a minivan. My motorcycle insurance was 2400.00 a year.

 

[ducklite]

Homeowners, $1400 a year. Insurance on three cars (one is rated as a low use leisure vehicle ie. negligable cost) $2200.00 a year. We both have perfect driving records with no accidents or tickets for over ten years, and have never had a homeowners claim. With the exchange rate I'd say you are getting off very cheap!

Anne

 

[Talking Hands]

The Guarantee Fund which all insurers pay into benifits all insured homeowners. If your private company goes belly up the Guarantee Fund will cover you. And unfortunately it may be, in the future, Citizens will be the only insurance available. Citizen's is Florida's name for JUA.

 

[CharlesTD]

Homeowners, $1400 a year. Insurance on three cars (one is rated as a low use leisure vehicle ie. negligable cost) $2200.00 a year. We both have perfect driving records with no accidents or tickets for over ten years, and have never had a homeowners claim. With the exchange rate I'd say you are getting off very cheap!

Anne

Your car insurance is about the same as ours only you have 3 vehicles insured ours is 2750 a year for just the car and mini van the bike added another 2400.00 a year but our homowners insurance is quite cheap. Our car insurance is at a discounted rate because I work for the company. Without the discount we are at 1800.00 a year on a 98 Malibu and 2600.00 a year on teh 05 Montana minivan.

 

[ducklite]

The Guarantee Fund which all insurers pay into benifits all insured homeowners. If your private company goes belly up the Guarantee Fund will cover you. And unfortunately it may be, in the future, Citizens will be the only insurance available. Citizen's is Florida's name for JUA.

I'm not worried about the company I am insured with going belly up. I looked at their reserves and ratings before signing up with them. They are strong and picky, so they don't have as many claims as the "mass market" insurers. (Allstate and State Farm for example)

Citizen's will NEVER be the only insurance available. For people with well built homes in areas not prone to cat's and with good credit, there are high end private insurer's who won't pull out of FL, they have low loss ratios, so no reason to. I have three other higly rated companies who would write my business in a heartbeat, at competitive rates. I'm not at all worried.

I do not appreciate having to subsidize the insurance premiums for people who can't get insurance through private sources, in some cases because they have poor credit or have had a lot of claims, haven't kept their homes up so have been dropped by other companies. As I said, People's needs to raise the premiums to cover their losses and shore up their reserves, not expect those who aren't insured by them to subsidize their customers.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Your car insurance is about the same as ours only you have 3 vehicles insured ours is 2750 a year for just the car and mini van the bike added another 2400.00 a year but our homowners insurance is quite cheap. Our car insurance is at a discounted rate because I work for the company. Without the discount we are at 1800.00 a year on a 98 Malibu and 2600.00 a year on teh 05 Montana minivan.

Charles, the one car is rated as a liesure vehicle, in other words a car that is expected to be driven less than 3000 miles a year, and is garaged otherwise. The cost to insure that car is only about $300 a year, so in reality we are paying about the same for the two cars we actually use, a 2005 Prius and a 2004 Saturn ION.

Anne

 

[CharlesTD]

Wow my leisure vehicle (read motorcycle) less than 2500 kilometers a year costs me 2400 a year LOL.

 

[ducklite]

Wow my leisure vehicle (read motorcycle) less than 2500 kilometers a year costs me 2400 a year LOL.

Big difference in rating from a 4 cylinder, four door sedan (we call it the "Dad Car") and a motorcycle--you are much more likely to be in a serious wreck with personal injury on the bike--more than likely someone else's fault, but odds are against you nonetheless.

Anne

 

[Talking Hands]

Ducklite are you in the insurance field? My husband is and he is the one feels that there is a very good chance that Citizen's will be the only available homeowners insurance in the future. He has watched insurance companies gradually pull out as soon as they can do it ever since hurricane Andrew.
Btw we do have private insurance ourselves. And we are currently revamping our electrical system to bring it up to current code as the house is close to 50 years old. It is one of the 3 things needed for insurance to be continued on a house over 50 years old.

 

[ThAnswr]

Ducklite are you in the insurance field? My husband is and he is the one feels that there is a very good chance that Citizen's will be the only available homeowners insurance in the future. He has watched insurance companies gradually pull out as soon as they can do it ever since hurricane Andrew.
Btw we do have private insurance ourselves. And we are currently revamping our electrical system to bring it up to current code as the house is close to 50 years old. It is one of the 3 things needed for insurance to be continued on a house over 50 years old.

Our insurance company, Tower Hill, sent us a letter saying they weren't going to renew us after Charley. The state legislature put the kibosh on that.

 

[ducklite]

Ducklite are you in the insurance field? My husband is and he is the one feels that there is a very good chance that Citizen's will be the only available homeowners insurance in the future. He has watched insurance companies gradually pull out as soon as they can do it ever since hurricane Andrew.
Btw we do have private insurance ourselves. And we are currently revamping our electrical system to bring it up to current code as the house is close to 50 years old. It is one of the 3 things needed for insurance to be continued on a house over 50 years old.

I have a P&C brokers license that I've never used in the 20+ years I've had it. My DH works for a "cream of the crop" international insurance company. They write in FL and have no reason to leave, although they wisely limit their exposure in a number of ways. They are not our carrier, they originally had no appetite for us. When we first built it was a second home, and they don't write second homes in Florida with value under $1M. They would love to write us now that we are f/t occupied, but we ended up with another wonderful and highly rated company and see no reason to leave them.

Homes which are well built/up to code with owners with good credit and a good claims history will have no problem getting home owners insurance privately. We will continue to see lower end and mass market carriers leave the state, but the boutique carriers will remain. The difference is that they are picky about what they will write, which is fine with me. In essence that will help to keep my rates lower.

My point is that those with private insurance should not be forced to subsidize those who can't get it. The public insurer simply needs to raise rates to shore up reserves and cover current losses, even if it means some people need to sell their homes as they can no longer afford to live there.

Anne

 

[Viking]

If the insurance company makes a loss, it pays less taxes or can even use deductions - and who's paying then? Every taxpayer!!!
You live in a society, which means 'living together'. If you don't like it, get yourself an island somewhere and live as a hermit.

 

[ducklite]

If the insurance company makes a loss, it pays less taxes or can even use deductions - and who's paying then? Every taxpayer!!!
You live in a society, which means 'living together'. If you don't like it, get yourself an island somewhere and live as a hermit.

You are missing the point. A good insurance company doesn't have "losses". They underwrite and rate to have adequate reserves to cover day to day claims and cats. They charge enough to cover themselves to their customers to begin with.

In the case of People's, they did not do so. They were giving lower than market rates to people, so they didn't have enough reserves. Then they want every other insured in the state to cover them, rather than charge back to their insureds. That's where the problem is. If my insurance company had a serious of cat claims, I would expect my insurance rates to be higher. If Allstate had a series of Cat claims, they would not expect my insurance carrier to bill me to cover their poor actuarial calculations. Why should I have to cover People's poor planning? I am not their customer.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Our insurance company, Tower Hill, sent us a letter saying they weren't going to renew us after Charley. The state legislature put the kibosh on that.

We have Tower Hill Preferred and they never even flinched with us after Charley. And BTW--we had the policy in effect for a total of 20 days before Charley. We've since renewed--they sent us a renewal notice we paid the bill, it's all good.

Here are their "numbers" for the past three years:

000s omitted
Time Period Admitted Assets Policyholders' Surplus Net Premium Written Direct Premium Written Licenses QRP*
3/31/2005 $57,787 $18,955 $3,802 $31,834 4 $509
12/31/2004 $50,695 $13,717 $13,267 $92,628 4
12/31/2003 $43,626 $13,325 $19,244 $64,103 4

What this means in a nut shell is that they reduced the number of policies they are writing in order to have a better risk position. "Biggest" doesn't always mean best with insurance. They increased their assets and surplus, which keeps them solvent to pay claims. They have lower net written premium, which shows that they have decided to write less policies and use better underwriting discretion about the policies they are writing in order to maximise profit and minimize risk.

They are being smart to want to drop some customers based on risk analysis in order to limit their exposure in certain areas. I would rather see insurers simply raise premiums to cover potential losses, and let the consumer decide if they want to stay with that carrier or not than have the government step in and tell insurers they are forced to renew. I have no problem with the carriers being forced to keep customers for a short time (say up to three months) during and immediately after a cat.

After the first World Trade Center attack, many P&C insurers took a close look at what they call "clustered exposure" and weaned their business to avoid having too much in one area. A very wise move, although the more savvy companies did it through raising premiums as opposed to non-renewals.

The other problem I see is that some of the "mass" companies have not purchased ample reinsurance. That's just penny wise and pound foolish.

Anne

 

[ThAnswr]

We have Tower Hill Preferred and they never even flinched with us after Charley. And BTW--we had the policy in effect for a total of 20 days before Charley. We've since renewed--they sent us a renewal notice we paid the bill, it's all good.

Here are their "numbers" for the past three years:

000s omitted
Time Period Admitted Assets Policyholders' Surplus Net Premium Written Direct Premium Written Licenses QRP*
3/31/2005 $57,787 $18,955 $3,802 $31,834 4 $509
12/31/2004 $50,695 $13,717 $13,267 $92,628 4
12/31/2003 $43,626 $13,325 $19,244 $64,103 4

What this means in a nut shell is that they reduced the number of policies they are writing in order to have a better risk position. "Biggest" doesn't always mean best with insurance. They increased their assets and surplus, which keeps them solvent to pay claims. They have lower net written premium, which shows that they have decided to write less policies and use better underwriting discretion about the policies they are writing in order to maximise profit and minimize risk.

They are being smart to want to drop some customers based on risk analysis in order to limit their exposure in certain areas. I would rather see insurers simply raise premiums to cover potential losses, and let the consumer decide if they want to stay with that carrier or not than have the government step in and tell insurers they are forced to renew. I have no problem with the carriers being forced to keep customers for a short time (say up to three months) during and immediately after a cat.

After the first World Trade Center attack, many P&C insurers took a close look at what they call "clustered exposure" and weaned their business to avoid having too much in one area. A very wise move, although the more savvy companies did it through raising premiums as opposed to non-renewals.

The other problem I see is that some of the "mass" companies have not purchased ample reinsurance. That's just penny wise and pound foolish.

Anne

We had no problem with Tower Hill either. They told us to pick up the carpet and get needed repairs done and submit the bills. They even waived the depreciation for contents.

The problem was that our agent (Countrywide) was no longer going to carry Tower Hill in Florida. We tried to renew the policy through a local agent, but all policies were on hold. We were up for renewal in September, but all the agencies were gone here because of hurrican damage. The legislature had to step in and require these renewals.

But, we have since renewed with Tower Hill and are very, very satisfied. Everyone I know who had Allstate, State Farm, etc, has been caught in a nightmare.

The fact this insurance companies are going to do what they are required to do by the legislatures. Some do more and some try to get away with it.

 

[CharlesTD]

Well our home owners insurance gives full replacement value no depreciation up here and at apparently reasonable rates in comparison to what I have seen here. Now car insurance has skyrocketed along with motorcycle insurance up here to the tune of about a 25-40% increase per anum. I work for an insurance company and our company has annual profits into the billions yet the rates keep going up.

 

[ducklite]

Well our home owners insurance gives full replacement value no depreciation up here and at apparently reasonable rates in comparison to what I have seen here. Now car insurance has skyrocketed along with motorcycle insurance up here to the tune of about a 25-40% increase per anum. I work for an insurance company and our company has annual profits into the billions yet the rates keep going up.

I wonder if you work for the same one my husband does, they have a large office in the TO area.

Anne

 

[CharlesTD]

I wonder if you work for the same one my husband does, they have a large office in the TO area.

Anne

We have offices across Canada I am in one of the large central offices in London Ontario we have another large office like this in Toronto and one in Edmonton Alberta also. I work for the life insurance side of TD insurance we are starting to have more of a presence in teh US with other broands also like our brockerage firm TD Waterhouse and we just purchased a couple of banks in the US. It would be interesting to know if we work for the same company.

 

[ducklite]

We have offices across Canada I am in one of the large central offices in London Ontario we have another large office like this in Toronto and one in Edmonton Alberta also. I work for the life insurance side of TD insurance we are starting to have more of a presence in teh US with other broands also like our brockerage firm TD Waterhouse and we just purchased a couple of banks in the US. It would be interesting to know if we work for the same company.

Nope, not the same one.

Anne