Published: Friday, Jul. 10, 2009

Updated: Friday, Jul. 10, 2009

Citizens increases, decreases to come

MANATEE — Citizens Property Insurance officials are sifting through records to determine how many policyholders will be eligible for a rate decrease starting Jan. 1.

As of Thursday, the state’s safety net for homeowners insurance found 177,000 out of 635,000 with multi-peril policies will receive a decrease. Homeowners in Manatee and Sarasota counties with a multi-peril policy will see a mix of increases and decreases depending on their home’s location but specific numbers for the county aren’t yet available.

Citizens officials are recalculating rates for its one million policyholders after a 10 percent rate increase was approved Wednesday. Board members for Citizens Wednesday also agreed to honor a rate decrease for those policyholders who were eligible for one.

Manatee County has 22,198 Citizens policyholders and Sarasota County has 56,810.

Manatee County coastal homes that are single family and have a multi-peril policy will see a slight rate increase, said John Kuczwanski, spokesman for Citizens. The remainder of single-family Manatee homes with multi-peril coverage will see a decrease.

In Sarasota County, Kuczwanski said current rates are fairly accurate for coastal single-family homes with the multi-peril coverage. The remainder of Sarasota single-family homes with multi-peril coverage will see a slight increase.

Homes in Manatee with wind only policies will see about a 15 percent increase, while those in Sarasota will see the same rates or a decrease of up to 20 percent.

Citizens Property Insurance must submit its rate filing to the Office of Insurance Regulation on July 15.

Tom Zutell, spokesman for the Office of Insurance Regulation, said rate decreases for Citizens policyholders came about due to new legislation this year. The legislation said Citizens must begin a “glide path” to attain actuarial sound rates for all lines of coverage they sell, Zutell said.

“To determine what the actuarial sound rate was for each line, they ran extensive computer modeling scenarios and determined that in some areas the rate needed to increase while in others, customers were paying too much,” Zutell said.