In the wake of Hurricane Milton, Floridians across the state are only starting to pick up the pieces and take the first steps on what is sure to be a long road to recovery. In the aftermath of devastating back-to-back hurricanes in what has so far been a three-hurricane season for the state, it is difficult to imagine that Florida will ever be the same.
After Hurricane Helene, Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Citizens Property Insurance Corporation—the state-administered insurer of last resort—was only one major storm away from complete insolvency. Milton was much more than a major storm, causing record damage across what had previously been an unthinkably large swath of the state for one storm to impact.
Though Milton was much more of a wind event, while Helene was most notable for its storm surges, a twist was added in the form of a record number of tornadoes pounding the east coast from Port St. Lucie to West Palm Beach—areas that were only expecting moderate wind gusts. The winds came with a range similar to the surges from Helene, with areas an hour north of where the storm made landfall experiencing nearly identical wind speeds.
They were howling so fiercely through the center of the state that I actually sat against the door of an Orlando motel we had evacuated to for nearly an hour, fearing that the powerful gusts that were causing the heavy door to rattle on its hinges would eventually see it give way to the winds. From there, they again gained force. A storm predicted to rapidly lose intensity once it made landfall instead saw nearly identical wind speeds as it blew from St. Pete (101 mph) to Daytona Beach (99 mph), nearly two hundred miles across the state.
The initial estimates of Milton’s damage were $50 billion, a number that is all but certain to be adjusted upward as the weeks go by. How many homeowners lacked adequate insurance because of the long-ignored statewide crisis? How many will find themselves part of the ever-increasing ranks of Florida homeowners falling victim to insurance fraud and the outright refusal to pay claims that were recently profiled on 60 Minutes?
Tens of thousands of Floridians are still displaced after flood waters ravaged their homes during hurricanes Debbie and Helene—many of whom did not have flood insurance because it was unattainable. Massive oak trees have been uprooted all across the state during Milton. At a cost of up to $15,000 to remove each tree and homeowners’ insurance not covering tree removal, how many will be able to afford having felled trees removed from their properties, let alone the damage they caused? How many people have lost paid-off cars for which they were only carrying liability insurance so that they might afford their homeowner’s policy?
How many more insurance companies will pull up stakes following the 2024 hurricane season? When Milton hit, Citizens already had 1.3 million policies in place—three times the number the non-profit had in force five years prior. Earlier this year, state regulators approved a proposal allowing private insurers to absorb policies from Citizens. On August 2, insurance commissioner Michael Yaworsky signed an order allowing ten private insurance carriers to take over more than 400,000 of those policies beginning in late October. In September, over 235,000 more were added to the list. Will private insurers take more? Will Washington bail out Citizens?
Homeowners with Citizens policies have already suffered massive rate hikes in recent years but would likely see even stiffer increases from the private sector, especially after Milton. How many homeowners who have managed to pay off their homes will have to forgo insurance and leave what is likely their largest financial asset unprotected from increasingly frequent super-storms?
Will banks be able to find insurers to mandate private sector policies of last resort on home mortgages for which the owner lost their policy? If so, how many homeowners will be forced into foreclosure when they cannot pay sky-high premiums that rival their payments toward the loan's principal? As institutional investors seek to cash out of the volatile market, will selling a home for what is owed even be an option, or will the market collapse as it did in the late aughts?
These questions are enough to keep even those Floridians who didn’t suffer the worst during this storm season up at night. During COVID, the national media spoke of the “Great Florida Migration,” as the governor bragged about how many people wanted to move to Florida and the economic boom that would follow. A couple of years later, another price-soaring building boom has been completed, and we are left to ponder not whether there is a ceiling to the historic uptick but whether the Florida dream can even survive into the future.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here.
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David Daniels
Great topic, Mitch. I recently read a report by journalist Judd Legum titled "How insurance companies could stiff the victims of Hurricane Milton." Legum points out that State Farm and Castle Key (a subsidiary of Allstate) flatly denied 46% of all claims in 2023. Denying claims is part of their business model. There has been a long held perception that lawsuits are filed by people trying to take advantage of the system. But lawsuits are the only recourse against an insurance denial. In a 2022 special session, DeSantis and our Tallahassee "representatives" passed measures making it nearly impossible for the average person to sue insurance companies. This was supposed to lower premiums but it was a gift to insurance companies. Between 2018-2022, the insurance industry contributed $3.9 million to DeSantis and his PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis. Recent legislation has protected insurance company profits and forced thousands of policy holders off Citizens and into more expensive private insurance policies. The Ben Sasse appointment at UF, the Corcoran appointment at NC, the Satcher appointment, the unreported gifts, the attempt to build pickleball courts in State parks, the $millions paid to attorneys to defend his culture war policies, the refusal to turn over public records...DeSantis, Boyd and Robinson are the Swamp.
Saturday, October 19, 2024 Report this