Lawmakers come together to try and fix insurance markets

Florida’s property insurance market is falling apart. Squeezing money out of your pocket and sending you searching for coverage. Now lawmakers are coming together to try and fix it during a special session on Monday.

You could definitely call it a slow start with only a handful of lawmakers gathering in person.

What they’re looking at includes expanding the life of your roof. Right now many companies require you to replace anything older than 10 years. Plus, setting up a state plan where you could get money to make your home safer and more hurricane-resistant like retrofitting your roof and getting storm windows.

The bills also call for creating a $2 billion reinsurance fund. That’s insurance for the insurance companies in the event of storm payouts or major catastrophes. Mark Friedlander with the insurance information institute says this is so they don’t go bankrupt or cancel your policy.

“The reinsurance fund we’re talking about is a stopgap,” Friedlander says. “It’s an emergency fund for hurricane season. It doesn’t fix all the problems of struggling insurers. So you know like I said, it’s a first step in the process. It’s a starting point.”

Friedlander worries these bills don’t do enough to help fix how the insurance market started collapsing in the first place with lawsuits, roofing, and fraud.