Of Fevers and Thermometers: The Coming Florida Insurance Market Gets the Shivers.

• Date: 25 October 2022
• Author: Acunto, Steve

* Ian hit Cape Cayo at 155 m.p.h. Wallop. Too late to start thinking. Too late for "feel good" plans.

In a flash, first responders and insurers were hit with tidal waves that have yet to subside.

But in Ian's wake, there has been time to reflect for real on the insurance industry's performance, its readiness and its future in the Sunshine State. While some domestic insurers, like Centauri among others, fared quite well and served clients amiably and effectively, others are close to insolvency - or there already--for reasons other than the direct impact of Ian.

Thirty years after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida's residential property insurance marketplace, many in Florida are - incredibly - blaming the thermometer - the measuring instruments of insurer solvency - for the fever afflicting the marketplace. In 1996, when the major insurer rating agencies avoided the newly capitalized insurers depopulating the Florida Residential Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association (JUA), Demotech, Inc., the insurer rating agency accepted by Fannie and Freddie since 1990, stepped up to rate the...