Florida’s Citizens Ends Moratorium on Cancellations, Nonrenewals
After extending the moratorium on cancellations and nonrenewals put into place at the start of the pandemic, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has announced it will resume processing these as of Feb. 1, 2021.
The Florida insurer of last resort said the board of governors approved lifting the temporary moratorium established in March 2020 for policyholders due to the COVID-19 health risk.
Cancellations and nonrenewals for policies that had exceptions will be processed on Feb. 1. After that date, Citizens will only make hardship exceptions to policyholders who continue to be affected by loss of employment, diminished wages or business income, or other monetary loss during the state of emergency and directly impacting their ability to make payments.
The company said this is a standard similar to that used in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order that narrows criteria in prior orders for relief from foreclosures and evictions.
Citizens will continue to offer temporary payment arrangements to impacted policyholders to select by Jan. 31, 2021. Quarterly payment plans will continue to be available to policyholders as of Feb. 1. After Jan. 31, new payment arrangements would be offered only to policyholders who continue to experience a hardship.
Citizens has begun mailing invoices for each policy term to list-bill (mortgagee-billed) and direct-billed policyholders with a past due premium of $5 or more. The total past-due premium is due on Jan. 31, 2021. Citizens said it would email affected agents a list of their past-due policies that are direct-billed and list-billed before Jan. 31, 2021, with more information.
Citizens said that as of Nov. 30, 2020, payment exceptions had been made on 30,799 policies (6.04% of policies) for a total of more than $24 million. The insurer also made 25,857 underwriting exceptions for 10,678 new business policies and 15,179 existing policies.
Citizens’ program for alternate documents and deferrals also will end on February 1.