Commercial Rates in Florida’s Citizens Going Up 3.3%

Rates for the almost 100,000 commercial property risks insured by Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will rise an average 3.3 percent next February.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has approved the increase, which is less that the average 5.2 percent increase requested by Citizens. The decision came after 45-day deliberative process and a public hearing on Aug. 27 in Tallahassee.

Commercial polices are found in both Citizens’ Commercial Lines and Coastal Accounts and represent 99,009 of Citizens’ total 933,807 policies statewide.

OIR previously approved new rates for homeowners accounts, a statewide average rate decrease of 3.7 percent.

OIR is now setting commercial rates for Non-Residential Multi-Peril, Non-Residential Wind Only, Residential Wind Only (excluding Condo Associations), Residential Wind Only (Condo Associations), Residential Multi-Peril (Condo Associations), and Residential Multi-Peril (excluding Condo Associations) accounts.

The effective date for both new and renewal rates within the Commercial Lines and Coastal Accounts is February 1, 2015. The chart below, provided by OIR, shows the overall statewide average rate changes established by the Office for each account individually: