I wanted to take a quick moment and touch on the latest changes that have come about from the number one home insurance carrier in Florida – Proof of Primary Residence. This is the latest item in an ongoing string of changes from Citizens, and it specifically affects people with secondary homes here in Florida. Here’s what you need to know. Citizens is now surcharging policies when the home that they are insuring is not someone’s “long-term primary residence”. The key word here is someone’s “long term primary residence”. What Citizens is looking to see is, does someone call this home their primary residence on a long-term basis.
This means, if you had a renter in a rental home with an annual lease, the home would be considered the renter’s “Long term Primary Residence”, and the surcharge would not apply. However, you as the owner of the rental home would need to send in documentation such as an annual lease agreement showing that the home is in fact rented on an annual basis, to keep the surcharge from being applied.
So, what are currently acceptable Proofs of Primary Residency? Homestead Exemption, New purchase signed affidavit, Voter registration card, redacted Florida driver’s license, redacted Florida Identification Card, redacted Military orders, vehicle registration, lease agreement executed within the last 12 months. The lease agreement must be for more than nine months.
Now, let’s discuss who the surcharge affects. The single largest group of people that the surcharge affects are the people who have purchased secondary homes here in Florida for their own personal use ie: Snowbirds. This is for the first-time buyers along with people that have existing homeowners’ policies with Citizens. Combine this with the Citizens mandatory flood endorsement, and you can see that the Citizens premiums are getting very close to what standard carriers are charging. Thus, achieving the desired results without having to raise their premiums.
Stay tuned as we will dive in to some of the unique nuances of a Citizens home insurance policy in our next Newsletter, so that you can best advise your clients.
