By Dan Moffett
Briny Breezes residents will get a rare chance to go one-on-one with state officials over property insurance issues when state Sen. Maria Sachs holds a workshop in the town’s ocean clubhouse beginning at 1 p.m. on Oct. 7.
Sachs, D-Delray Beach, has lined up a panel of representatives from Citizens Property Insurance and consumer advocate groups to discuss problems residents are having with their mobile home policies.
“You will have the opportunity to question them directly,” Sachs says, “and get answers straight from Citizens.”
The relationship between the state’s mobile home parks and the state-run insurer took a dramatic turn in 2010 when the Legislature changed Citizens’ rules for coverage. Under the change, Citizens is no longer required to pay replacement costs on losses for mobile and manufactured homes built before 1994. Instead, Citizens is required to pay only the actual cash value of the loss.
For communities such as Briny, the new rule means that Citizens will pay an owner whose trailer is destroyed in a storm only a fraction — often less than 30 percent — of what it will take to buy another.
The decrease in compensation is part of the Legislature’s effort to reduce the state’s exposure to potential hurricane losses. Over the last four years, Citizens has reduced its total exposure from about $510 billion to $295 billion by dropping high-risk coastal home policies and reducing the coverage obligations on trailers and manufactured homes.
Citizens has gone from a high point of about 1.5 million policy holders to just over 900,000 now as part of the company’s depopulation of policies.
According to Citizens CEO Barry Gilway, the insurer is better positioned to take a hit from a major hurricane since legislators made the changes and now has a total claims-paying capability of close to $20 billion, up from about $16.7 billion in 2011.
Sachs is telling residents to “bring your insurance policies” to the Briny workshop and let the representatives of Citizens and the consumer groups review the coverage on an individual basis.
In 2013, she played host to four similar workshops in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
“What we’re trying to do is bring Tallahassee down to the people,” Sachs said. “Let’s get together and let’s discuss this.”
Admission is free.
The panelists scheduled to participate in the Briny Breezes event are Christine Ashburn, Citizens vice president of communications and legislative and external affairs; Candace Bunker, Citizens manager of legislative and cabinet affairs; Steve Burgess, Tallahassee-based insurance consumer advocate; and Jay Neal, president and CEO of the Florida Association for Insurance Reform in Fort Lauderdale.
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