What company would you choose if you are forced out of Citizens? (Weston: 2014)

[Sovaldi]

Hi, I currently live in North Broward and am insured by my beloved homeowner insurer Citizens. I read in the newspaper a while back that in Jan 1 2014, citizens will have forced take-outs of their policies. It will no longer be an option to stick with Citizens. I personally do not know why is Citizens always making a big fuss every single year. I am surprised that up until this point, I have not received any notification from Citizens itself about the take-out plan. I was wondering if anyone else is researching on this, and what company would you consider if you cannot stay with Citizens? I read that only Heritage and Weston have some degree of guarantee that they will not raise premium more than 10% every year, but do not know much about them. Wonder if I can have your thoughts? Thanks a bunch!

[JohnD_fla]

I read your post a few times, and I still can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not when you say your "beloved Citizens". The reason why Citizens is making a big fuss is because our lovely governor, Rick Scott, is on a mission to put Citizens out of business. If you have halfway decent credit and your mortgage is current just about any private insurer will charge you less than Citizens.

[Enigma777]

Originally Posted by Sovaldi

Hi, I currently live in North Broward and am insured by my beloved homeowner insurer Citizens. I read in the newspaper a while back that in Jan 1 2014, citizens will have forced take-outs of their policies. It will no longer be an option to stick with Citizens. I personally do not know why is Citizens always making a big fuss every single year. I am surprised that up until this point, I have not received any notification from Citizens itself about the take-out plan. I was wondering if anyone else is researching on this, and what company would you consider if you cannot stay with Citizens? I read that only Heritage and Weston have some degree of guarantee that they will not raise premium more than 10% every year, but do not know much about them. Wonder if I can have your thoughts? Thanks a bunch!

Citizens dumped a lot of customers in 2013. I was transferred to Heritage. I opted out of the transfer in 2012, but this year they stated what my premium would be when renewed and it was lower with Heritage than with Citizens. I discussed it with my insurance agent and she advised switching over because Citizens was going to do a large clearing out in January anyway. It seems that no companies want to do sinkhole coverage so there are large deductibles on all the policies. The Fla property insurance is basically extortion as you need it for a mortgage and people are terrified of making claims because they will get cancelled or have increased premiums.

[Papillons2]

Originally Posted by Sovaldi

Hi, I currently live in North Broward and am insured by my beloved homeowner insurer Citizens. I read in the newspaper a while back that in Jan 1 2014, citizens will have forced take-outs of their policies. It will no longer be an option to stick with Citizens. I personally do not know why is Citizens always making a big fuss every single year. I am surprised that up until this point, I have not received any notification from Citizens itself about the take-out plan. I was wondering if anyone else is researching on this, and what company would you consider if you cannot stay with Citizens? I read that only Heritage and Weston have some degree of guarantee that they will not raise premium more than 10% every year, but do not know much about them. Wonder if I can have your thoughts? Thanks a bunch!

Citizens is supposed to inform you by mail first before it attempts to move you to another company (I say "supposed to" because nothing should ever be taken for granted in the South Florida homeowners insurance marketplace in general and with Citizens in particular, except that rates won't be going down). You're also supposed to have the option of staying with Citizens, as far as I know. If you haven't received a notice, you should have some time to research possible options. Might be a good time to consult with your insurance agent before anything actually happens.

Also, do you live east of I-95? If so, it's much less likely that you will be forced out of Citizens as only a few homeowner insurers will write new windstorm policies in east Broward. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule -- our next-door neighbors when we owned a house in northeast Broward were asked to join a takeout program a few years ago. But they were the only homeowners out of a few dozen on our street to receive such a letter, and Citizens generally is the only option in the east.