Citizens up to 1.245M policies

The state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has continued adding thousands of policies a week, as officials say they expect a large decrease in policies late in the year.

Citizens had 1,245,110 policies as of Friday, up from 1,241,766 policies a week earlier and 1,237,500 policies two weeks earlier.

Citizens, which was created as an insurer of last resort, has become Florida’s largest property insurer in recent years as private carriers faced financial problems.

Citizens reached as many as 1.412 million policies in fall 2023 before seeing reductions because of what is known as a “depopulation” program that seeks to shift policies into the private market.

Citizens officials say they expect the total number of policies to drop below 1 million by the end of the year because of the depopulation program.

But amid the hurricane season, policies are not expected to start leaving Citizens until late October.

The six-month season started June 1 and will end Nov. 30.