A SMALL PRICE TO PAY FOR RACE WAR:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has had a busy year. He has enacted legislation prohibiting teachers from acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people. He has banned private businesses from conducting trainings about racial bias. And he has flown dozens of migrants from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, under false pretenses. 

But while DeSantis was fighting the culture wars and positioning himself for a future presidential run, he has failed to meaningfully address one of the state's biggest problems: its dysfunctional and collapsing property insurance market. 

Florida's property insurance system was in crisis even though the state had not been struck by a major hurricane since 2018. Then Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida's west coast, killing at least 74 people and inflicting tens of billions of dollars in property damage. Things are about to get much worse. 

Florida property faces catastrophic risks from weather events that worsen each year due to climate change. For years, many of the nation's major insurers have wanted little to do with covering property in Florida. Currently, State Farm covers 8% of Florida's home insurance market, but "no other major national insurer has more than 4%." 

That leaves Floridians reliant on thinly-capitalized local insurers with very high rates. Floridians pay an average of "$4,231 a year per [property insurance] policy, compared to a US average of $1,544." Premiums have increased as much as 30% per year. Nevertheless, these companies are having a hard time surviving. In the last five years, six Florida insurance companies have gone out of business "without responding to a hurricane, and four more are in the process of liquidation." 

The collapsing market has left many Floridians reliant on the Citizens Property Insurance Corp., a state-run agency that is supposed to be the "insurer of last resort." It now provides property insurance for more than 1 million Floridians. But Citizens has limited resources. It currently has $13.5 billion available to pay out claims -- a pool of money that will be depleted, if not exhausted, by Ian. If Citizens runs out of money, Florida law "allows [Citizens] to assess non-customers to pay out claims." 

This assessment, known as a "hurricane tax," would result in increased costs for Floridians that don't even own homes but carry auto, renters, or other forms of insurance. Florida State Senator Jeff Brandes (R) warns that Floridians could "see rate hikes of up to 40% next year as a result of Ian." 

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