Hurricane Helene’s ultimate impact is still being discovered, but a congressional Democrat who served previously as Florida’s Director of Emergency Management thinks it’s necessary to smooth out the impacts for storms nationally and “spread this risk around.”
During a Fox News interview, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz championed legislation he has filed to “create a national catastrophic insurance fund.”
“It would add no money to the deficit. It would allow states to buy bonds that when we have these 1 in 1,000 year storms would take that off of the plates of the insurance companies, which is driving up 25% of the cost on reinsurance,” Moskowitz said. “Even if my bill doesn’t move or go anywhere, I think the United States government and Congress has to start realizing that we have to amortize the risk.”
“We have to spread this risk around,” he added. “It can’t just be on one state or two states to deal with this. Just like FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) spreads risk around when there’s a big disaster, FEMA comes in and helps local cities, counties and the states recover, I think we’re going to have to do the same thing in the insurance market.”
Without doing that, Moskowitz believes “some of these places are gonna become too expensive for the people who already live there, including seniors, by the way, who have retired and live in communities.”
Under Moskowitz’s bill, “bonds would fund the difference between the cap set on reinsurance requirements and the sum of homeowner damages caused by the event,” compelling “the Federal government (to) help guarantee part of the insurance cost for homeowners when disaster strikes.”
His Office said the legislation would also lower insurance costs for Floridians, where rates have surged in recent years and companies have repeatedly fled the state. The market has only recently started to improve, but costs still remain high.
“It’s critical for Floridians to have their homes insured in the event of severe damage. However, with storms becoming stronger and more frequent, insurance companies are seeking higher and higher reinsurance amounts, and those costs unfortunately get passed down to consumers,” Moskowitz said in a prepared statement regarding the bill in 2023.
“This legislation is a strong step towards stabilizing the insurance market and, most importantly, lowering rates for homeowners.”
It remains to be seen how damage caused by Helene will impact Florida’s home insurance marketplace, as surveys of the destruction remain ongoing.
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