Florida Citizens news

Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation looks set to more than double the size of its new catastrophe bond issuance, as the target for its first industry loss trigger cat bond, the Lightning Re Ltd. (Series 2023-1) issuance, has now been lifted to between $400m and $500m, Artemis has learned.

Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is back in the catastrophe bond market and for the first time the residual market insurer for the state is seeking reinsurance on an industry loss trigger basis, with a $200 million target for this Lightning Re Ltd. (Series 2023-1) issuance.

The recently enacted legislative reforms to Florida’s property insurance marketplace have the potential to alleviate some of the concerns of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) industry over prolonged trapping of capital, according to AM Best.

The property insurance related legislation currently being debated by lawmakers during Florida’s Special Session is seen as “historic” by the CEO of the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

With another Special Session of the Florida legislative set for later this month, Governor of the state Ron DeSantis has been outspoken on two key issues, one being reinsurance capital supply, the other the insurer of last resort Florida Citizens.

Florida’s property insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has provided a modelled estimate of its ultimate losses from recent hurricane Nicole, pegging the total at just $62.5 million.

Florida’s property insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has significantly increased its loss estimate for hurricane Ian, raising it to $3.8 billion, a level at which some private market reinsurance capacity will likely come into play, but leading it to believe its catastrophe bonds won’t be triggered.

Reinsurance capacity for lower-layers of Florida focused towers is expected to become very limited in 2023, while renewal rates are likely to rise above expectations, according to Citizens Property Insurance Corporation CEO Barry Gilway.

Florida’s property insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corporation said Friday that it is now estimating a hurricane Ian claim-count of around 100,000, down dramatically from its earlier assessment of a burden of over 225,000 claims being anticipated.

Barry Gilway, the CEO of Florida’s property insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, told analysts at KBW that his current best-estimate for the insurance industry loss from hurricane Ian is just $40 billion.