Florida’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, has come under intense scrutiny over the last year. Now, new data shows the company didn’t pay a dime in 77% of claims it closed from August’s Hurricane Debby.
In February, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the publicly backed Citizens is “not solvent,” prompting the Senate Budget Committee, led by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, to launch an investigation into whether Citizens would eventually need a federal bailout. The company covers the largest share of Florida property owners, including many of the state’s most vulnerable residents.
In the aftermath of back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton, Whitehouse told NOTUS in a statement, “Citizens — according to its own documents — is potentially one catastrophic storm or storm season away from finding itself with losses that exceed its immediate ability to pay by many billions of dollars.”