Posted by at 8th July, 2009
Royal Palm Beach Homes for SaleTALLAHASSEE – Roughly 1 million customers of the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will see a 10 percent increase on their premiums Jan. 1.
The board that oversees the state-backed insurer approved the increase Wednesday, ending a three-year rate freeze for businesses and homeowners insured by Citizens.
However, the governing board backed off a plan to reject rate cuts for customers in some parts of the state after some contentious debate and input from the Office of Insurance Regulation. The board voted to cap any cut at 10 percent, frustrating board chairman Jim Malone of Naples.
“We’ll take what we can get,” he said after learning that OIR most likely wouldn’t approve a board decision to reject decreases. “Our glide path is severely downgraded by this. We thought we were in the right direction.”
Citizens has 139,396 residential and business policyholders in Broward County and 97,755 in Palm Beach County. A majority of those customers will see a 10 percent rate increase, a company spokesman said.