The state home insurer of last resort drops customers with unpaid claims, and new abortion guidelines are published following the new six-week ban.

Citizens Insurance drops customers

According to the Florida Insurance Guarantee Association, more than 20,000 insurance claims were unpaid and sent to the association for payment and processing.

The large majority were from Citizens Insurance, which is the last resort option for people in the state.

Diamond Cortes’ Lakeland home was damaged, and she filed a claim with her then-insurance provider United Property & Casualty Insurance. She received a letter informing her she would not be renewed because the company was withdrawing from the state.

Fortunately, she was then able to sign a policy with Citizens Insurance.

“They approved me when no one else did. They knew the situation, and that was a year ago,” Cortes said.

One year later, she received a shocking letter once again.

“They sent me stating that there was damage, but they approved me with the damage, so now they are canceling me with the same damage that I have," she said. "So it didn’t make any sense."

It didn’t make sense to her insurance agent Steve Gensolin, either.

“On a lot of levels, the law has been set up to protect people in that particular circumstance, so we knew that shouldn’t be happening,” Gensolin said.

Gensolin is referring to Florida statute 627.4133, which was written in to law following the 2023 legislative session and says:

(e)1. An authorized insurer may not cancel or nonrenew a personal residential or commercial residential property insurance policy covering a dwelling or residential property located in this state:

A. For a period of 90 days after the dwelling or residential property has been repaired, if such property has been damaged as a result of a hurricane or wind loss…

Gensolin then took this issue up with state Rep. Anna Eskamani.

“You are supposed to be able to maintain your Citizens coverage because you are still waiting for a response from FIGA and you have impacts from hurricanes Ian and Nicole,” she said.

Citizens Insurance representative Christine Ashburn provided a statement in response to the dropped customers.

“We had no way of knowing at the time the policies were issued which policies may have open FIGA claims and the statute 627.4133 was not a part of Florida law at the time. When we make exceptions for cases like this, policies with existing damage are set up to non-renew so we are able to request and collect proof of repairs from policy holders before the policy can be renewed in the following year."

Citizens said after learning about this type of situation they are having their team of underwriters call agents that have policies that were non-renewed due to unrepaired damage to determine if that damage is the subject of an ongoing FIGA claim to review the policy.

So far, 454 policies have been identified as requiring additional underwriting to determine if the policy is eligible for renewal.

Health officials post clarifications on abortion questions in wake of six-week ban

Health officials have issued emergency rules that list exceptions for Florida’s six-week abortion ban.

The ban took effect on Wednesday, and the clarification was issued Thursday.

The new rules clarify what an abortion is.

For example, if a woman’s water breaks prematurely, the efforts to induce delivery are not defined as an abortion if the fetus does not survive.

Student Brittany Perry is studying to become a doctor and said the new ban and exceptions worry her.

“I think it’s definitely giving us pause and will have the data on that in a few months from the most recent survey the AAMC has done for medical students,” she said.

However, Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver said he is pleased with the newer exceptions for those that seek abortions early on.

“The statute gives a number of exceptions. And the regulations address some of those exceptions with the topic of pregnancy or certain type of tumors and other types of issues that might be part of pregnancy," he said. "That would not be considered an abortion. And that is what the regulation that was just issued by the agency for health care administration confirmed."

Staver believes the six-week law is fair.

“Certainly, at six weeks is a reasonable time where you have a detectable heartbeat,” he said.