![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cfo-patronis-headshot-4x6print.tmb-medium.jpg?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1\")
Another prominent Florida Republican is discussing his struggles dealing with surging property insurance rates in the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis<\/a> detailed the issue in a piece for the Florida Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor all of Florida\u2019s many blessings, however, you don\u2019t have to be an actuary to know that when it came to our property insurance market, Florida had its issues,\u201d the second-term Republican from the Panhandle wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI love Florida, but my own premiums have gone up 50 percent. This isn\u2019t a new issue despite what you hear in the news.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patronis isn\u2019t dealing with a problem quite as acute as that faced by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio<\/a>, the South Florida Republican who said his own rates recently tripled. Patronis also seemed more willing to advance historical and structural explanations for pressures in the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFlorida\u2019s vulnerability to storms goes back to its land mass formation somewhere around 530 million years ago. Storms are a part of what it means to be a Floridian. We are a giant peninsula that sticks hundreds of miles out into the ocean,\u201d Patronis wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn fact, other than Hawaii, we\u2019re the only state with a good chunk of its population in the tropical zone. For anyone who\u2019s ever listened to a Jimmy Buffett track (God rest his soul), that\u2019s where the waters are really hot, which generates storms. But hurricane season wasn\u2019t the only reason premiums were out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patronis added that the \u201cinsurance market was worse than it needed to be because we had bad laws that encouraged and rewarded litigation.\u201d But once Gov. Ron DeSantis \u201centered the picture,\u201d the state has seen \u201cmonumental\u201d reforms that have brought new carriers into the market that have taken pressures off of Citizens Property Insurance<\/a>, Patronis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, insurance rates in other states are a \u201cdisaster,\u201d Patronis notes, with 20% increases year over year in numerous states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n