Florida’s battle with insurance deepened Tuesday with the exit of another big company: Farmers Insurance.
The national company’s decision to leave the state immediately triggered a round of political disputes. The state’s chief financial officer accused the company of “playing politics” and threatened some unspecified retaliation, while Florida Democrats called a news conference to blame Republicans for pushing a “$3 billion tax” to single out insurers rather than demand accountability measures for the industry.
Farmers is far from the first insurer to leave the state, but the setback seemed more political than any in recent memory, possibly because opponents of presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (both left and right) see it as a point of weakness.
Michael Caputo, a former official in President Donald Trump’s administration, said Tuesday that issues like hurricane insurance are critical, kitchen-table concerns that affect votes.
“Florida is must-win battleground for GOP nomination: Will hurricane insurance decide it?” he tweeted. “Issues like this win campaigns.”
At the center of the argument are the hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have lost coverage in recent years, as seven insurers dropped, 15 stopped writing new business and four, farmers, the last they left the state entirely. Another 18 insurers are on a state watch list because of financial concerns.
And anyone who still has insurance pays more than anyone else in the country, three times the national average.
Related: Florida regulators warned of insurance company manipulation years ago
“People are hurting. They’re feeling the financial burden and the brunt of this home insurance crisis,” Florida House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell said at a news conference Wednesday. “It’s the No. 1 thing people want to talk about right now.”
Farmers announced its decision to leave Florida on Tuesday, leaving about 100,000 policyholders scrambling to find someone else to cover them. This is likely to increase demand for Citizens Insurance, the insurer of last resort. Citizens, Florida’s largest insurer, is growing at a record pace, with nearly 1.4 million customers to date, on a pace that could put the company at 2 million policies by the end of the year. The increased number of policies also puts Citizens on the hook for costly disasters that private companies have decided aren’t worth the risk.
Related: What does Farmers Insurance moving out of Florida mean for policyholders? Here’s what to do if you lose coverage.
Florida has devoted two special sessions and multiple bills in recent regular sessions to solving the state’s insurance crisis, largely targeting what insurers regularly say is the main problem: high numbers of fraudulent claims .
But after rewriting the rules to make it harder and more expensive to sue insurers, premiums keep rising. Although a July report from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation found that for the first time in several years, the home insurance industry posted a net gain in income.
Republicans blame the “awakening”
Republicans were quick to blame the insurer’s decision to leave anything but the state’s troubled market, despite years of unsuccessful reform efforts.
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In a letter to the farmers On Tuesday, the Office of Insurance Regulation wrote: “We understand that this decision was made independently of these reforms taking effect as part of a broader series of actions that Farmers is taking across the country and not just focused on Florida.”
The state’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, went further, accusing the company of leaving Florida because its business was too focused on “sustainable insurance” and aligning investments with its social values, such as avoiding investing in polluters or companies that discriminate sexually or racially. employees, a process known as environmental, social and governance investment that has recently become a political target for Republicans.
“The more we learn about Farmers Insurance, the more it’s clear that their leadership doesn’t know what they’re doing. While they’re bad at helping people, they’re good at virtue signaling,” Patronis wrote in a statement Tuesday. “It’s clear that while Farmers was making plans to exit a significant number of policies outside of Florida, they were playing politics and not focused on running a successful company.
“I honestly believe that with today’s stock, Farmers Insurance is well on its way to becoming the Bud Light of insurance,” he wrote, a nod to the recent controversy when Bud Light hired a trans woman to post a single TikTok ad for the drink. , sparking a conservative backlash and boycott against the company for its support of the LGBTQ community.
Patronis also announced its plan to look into the company’s complaints, which could trigger a market investigation and potentially fines and fees.
“The Legislature did an impressive job helping to stabilize the market, and Farmers Insurance’s actions are less a representation of the Florida market and more of poor leadership at the insurer,” he wrote.
Farmers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Patronis’ comment.
Democrats blame a $3 billion “handout.”
Democrats, on the other hand, were quick to point the finger directly at the Republican Party, which has been in power for nearly two decades in Florida and avoided most of the policy solutions suggested by Democrats to the crisis. insurance
“We see Republicans trying to mince words … but they have to own this failure,” Driskell told reporters. “This is a crisis they created.”
He called the recent Republican-led insurance reforms a gift to insurance companies of everything on their wish list, along with a “$3 billion handout” that helped the bottom lines of insurance companies, but still has to relieve the pressure of the insured.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said rising insurance costs are the most common issue her constituents bring to her, even as Republican voters in her district have expressed frustration with the still-soaring costs.
“We have Floridians who have never filed a claim and have always paid their premiums on time, but they are being abandoned,” he said. “Floridians Can’t Afford Florida.”
At the press conference, Eskamani also called the CFO’s tweets and statement about Farmers “shameful.”
“I would say threatening an insurance company is not a good way to attract more insurance companies to Florida, which is what we need right now,” he said.
Patronis’ comments also drew the ire of Rep. Hillary Cassel, D-Dania Beach, who spent most of her career as an attorney representing policyholders against insurance companies. He questioned Patronis’ decision to suddenly look into a company’s complaints only after he left, and not preemptively.
“Why do you expect them to leave? Now you’re threatening them with fees and fines because you can’t solve the problem,” he said.
“Now we’re seeing them blame it on the ESG, they’re trying to blame it on the wake. If that’s really the truth … why wait until now to investigate this when you have the ability to study these companies and determine Are they solvent in Florida’s time of greatest need?”
