WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate Budget Committee has started a probe into Florida’s property insurer of last resort—Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. 

Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, has issued a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state Insurance Commissioner, and the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation's president asking for information on how Citizens “plans to address increased underwriting losses from climate-related extreme weather events and other disasters.”

Specifically the letter asks questions including: 

• “What modeling or other analysis has Citizens done to estimate its total potential exposure to various worst case hurricane scenarios?”
• “What are Citizens’ current assets? What is Citizens’ total reinsurance coverage?”
• “Has Citizens contemplated asking for a federal bailout if it were unable to cover its losses?”

Citizens was created by the Florida Legislature in 2002 as an alternative for those who could not find property insurance in the private market. As Florida has faced storms like Hurricane Ian, which caused more than $112 billion in damage and insurance companies like Farmers Insurance leave due to risk, Citizens has become the largest property insurer in the state.

In response to the investigation, a Citizens spokesperson said, “As Florida’s insurer of last resort, Citizens is structured so that it will always be able to protect its policyholders and pay claims.”

The spokesperson also says its “Depopulation Program” is working to move policy holders off the state-run program, back to private insurers saying, “…more policies have been removed through depopulation this year (223,307) than in 2016-2022 combined (169,227). In fact, Citizens recently revised its 2023 year-end policy count and exposure projections from 1.7 million policies and $675 billion in total exposure to 1.215 million policies and $551 billion, respectively.”

The Senate Budget Committee is seeking a formal response with documents and information by Dec. 21.