With the March 11 scheduled close of its regular session fast approaching, the Florida Legislature remains so focused on putting the finishing touches on its various culture-war signaling bills that one might think Tallahassee hasn’t noticed that the state’s property insurance market is rapidly hurtling toward utter collapse.
The causes are multi-pronged: a uniquely challenging set of catastrophe risks, all increasingly magnified by the combination of rapid development and climate change; a litigation environment in which claims disputes drag on years beyond the events that initiated them; a reputed epidemic of questionable claims, many related to roofs; and a primary market that, more than a decade past its last major crisis, remains far too reliant on thinly capitalized domestic companies with insufficient geographic diversification.
