Lawmakers Returning To Tallahassee Yet Again, This Time On Property Insurance

Florida Phoenix

April 26, 2022

The Florida Legislature will meet in special session — its fourth in 12 months — during the week of May 23 to confront the state’s property insurance availability crisis.

That count doesn’t include the two 60-day regular sessions the Legislature has held during the past two years.

Gov. Ron DeSantis issued his latest proclamation on Tuesday, as he’d promised, so the lawmakers could do something about rising property insurance costs and the abandonment of the market by insurers.

Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, has had to assume nearly 400,000 policies since early 2020 because of insurer insolvencies, cancellations, or flight from Florida, the governor notes in his proclamation.

Its policy count could hit 1 million at this rate by year’s end, he added, with hurricane season beginning on June 1.

The Legislature completed a special session only this month, approving a contested congressional redistricting map and eliminating tax and liability advantages for The Walt Disney Co., which had come out against legislation restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity.

In November 2021, it met to approve DeSantis’ COVID agenda, including giving parents the right to decide whether schoolchildren should wear masks in the classroom.

In May 2021, the Legislature OK’d a gambling compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida allowing sports gambling in Florida for the first time, although a court ruling subsequently limited it to tribal property.

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