Potential Demotech downgrades spark effort to bolster Florida insurance coverage
Florida insurance coverage regulators are taking an “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” step to attempt to stop tens of hundreds of house owners from being pressured to search for new property insurance coverage protection if ranking company Demotech follows by way of on plans to downgrade many Florida carriers.
The Florida Workplace of Insurance coverage Regulation introduced a plan Wednesday to offer corporations which might be downgraded with reinsurance protection by way of state-run Residents Property Insurance coverage.
The dramatic determination to imagine monetary duty for a raft of struggling insurers underscores the dire circumstances Florida is going through as a big portion of its owners insurance coverage market teeters on the point of collapse.
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Downgrading so many corporations might wreak havoc within the state, inflicting massive issues for owners and the true property business.
What would Demotech downgrades imply for Florida insurance coverage market?
Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require debtors to have a house insurance coverage coverage from a highly-rated firm. Florida’s house insurance coverage market is dominated by smaller corporations that solely get rankings from Demotech, giving the corporate vital sway within the business.
Florida Insurance coverage Commissioner David Altmaier wrote a letter to Demotech final week expressing considerations that the corporate was poised to downgrade “roughly 17” Florida insurers.
Downgrading the businesses might immediate mortgage lenders to not settle for these insurance policies and drive owners to get protection elsewhere, a tough proposition in a state the place insurers are dropping insurance policies and dramatically elevating charges on policyholders.
“OIR’s best precedence is making certain shoppers have entry to insurance coverage, particularly throughout hurricane season; and due to the uncertainty with the standing of Demotech’s rankings, we’ve been pressured to take extraordinary steps to guard thousands and thousands of shoppers,” Altmaier mentioned Wednesday in saying the reinsurance plan.
An OIR press launch mentioned that offering downgraded corporations with reinsurance will make their insurance policies acceptable to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac every provide an exception to the monetary ranking necessities for an insurer that’s coated by a reinsurer who assumes, by endorsement, 100% of the insurer’s legal responsibility for any coated loss payable, however unpaid by the insurer, by purpose of insolvency,” the discharge states.
Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned Wednesday that it is sensible to make use of Residents as a monetary backstop for insurers, as a result of if the businesses are downgraded a lot of their insurance policies would finally circulation into Residents — the state’s insurer of final resort.
“If the businesses get downgraded and so they must shed insurance policies these will find yourself happening Residents anyway, so the publicity to Residents is extra to tackle the insurance policies than it will likely be to behave as a reinsurer of final resort,” DeSantis mentioned throughout a press convention in Tampa.
Reinsurance is insurance coverage for insurance coverage corporations. By offering such protection, Residents can be on the hook to pay the claims if the downgraded insurers aren’t capable of meet their monetary obligations. Spiking reinsurance prices have contributed to the house insurance coverage business’s issues in Florida, which is closely reliant on such protection.
The extra reinsurance protection comes on high of a $2 billion rescue fund authorized by state lawmakers throughout a particular session earlier this 12 months. That fund gives reinsurance without charge to Florida insurers. It was a part of a bundle of reforms meant to stabilize the insurance coverage business.
Demotech had deliberate to launch its rankings revisions on Tuesday, however mentioned in an announcement offered to USA TODAY Community – Florida that it’s taking extra time to replace the rankings.
“As the present regulatory local weather has develop into hostile and damaging and we now have and can expend a big effort creating responses to 3rd celebration letters, we will probably be taking extra time to evaluation data and take into account the problems affecting the businesses working in Florida,” the assertion reads.
Observe Herald-Tribune Political Editor Zac Anderson on Twitter at @zacjanderson. He might be reached at zac.anderson@heraldtribune.com
