In one of the great understatements of 2011, the website propertycasualty360.com has a story that's title reads, "Is Citizens’ Rate Hike Backlash a Case of Buyer’s Remorse With SB 408?"
Uh, let me see. The answer to that is a screaming "yes."
The story chronicles what has been painfully obvious since the day that Citizens shockingly announced that rate hikes for sinkhole property insurance would rise in some cases by over 2,000 percent.
The state-run insurance company of last resort is able to do this because of the passage of SB 408 this past spring in the Florida Legislature. Now some of those lawmakers who supported the measure are admitting the obvious: there is no way these rate hikes can happen without people being forced to leave their homes, since they won't be able to afford their insurance, and in many cases, they'll lose their mortgage if they can't.
This article appears in Sep 1-7, 2011.