{"id":27762,"date":"2022-12-09T13:39:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T18:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=27762"},"modified":"2022-12-09T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T18:39:16","slug":"united-property-casualty-insurance-ending-business-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/12\/09\/united-property-casualty-insurance-ending-business-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"United Property & Casualty Insurance ending business in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Florida\u2019s property insurance crisis just claimed another company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just a few months, United Property & Casualty Insurance plans to end business in the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The company is responsible for more than 140,000 insurance policies in Florida, according to numbers from November. So, what\u2019s in store for those homeowners now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homeowners across the state have seen their insurance rates skyrocket, and the special session in May did not lower costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis and lawmakers are trying again with a second special session to address the crisis set to begin on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re told DeSantis wants lawmakers to reduce the number of lawsuits and ensure the market is \u201cboth attractive to insurers and more competitive for consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you think that under Speaker Renner\u2019s leadership they\u2019re going to actually do something that fixes this?\u201d We asked Pinellas County\u2019s former state senator, Jeff Brandes, who spearheaded the push to convene the first special session in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have a choice. This has become the number one pocketbook issue in the state and it\u2019s only getting worse,\u201d Brandes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Brandes is advocating for bolder reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is the Achilles heel of the Florida real estate market and we are potentially going to gut the middle class in this state,\u201d said Brandes. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be paying more on their property insurance than they are on their mortgage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for the 140,000 plus homeowners\u2014they\u2019ll have to find new insurance soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All policies by United P&C will be cancelled by May 31, 2023, according to an Office of Insurance Regulation order. State regulators say all unearned premiums will be returned by the next day, June 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

United P&C is the seventh insurance company to exit Florida this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandes says their exit means thousands more will be forced into Citizens Property Insurance, the state-created insurer of last resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCitizens property insurance state-wide is 30% cheaper than the market and in Tampa Bay, they\u2019re 50% below the market,\u201d Brandes said. \u201cWhat that means is their rates are not reflective of the risk that they\u2019re actually taking on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida\u2019s property insurance crisis just claimed another company.  In just a few months, United Property & Casualty Insurance plans to end business in the Sunshine State. The company is responsible… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[4018],"class_list":["post-27762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-united-property-casualty-insurance-ending-business-in-florida"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}