Citizens Property Insurance adds more than 16,000 policies

TALLAHASSEE - Homeowners continue pouring into the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. for coverage. 

Citizens had 1,239,396 policies as of Friday, an increase of 16,192 policies from a week earlier and 29,683 policies from two weeks earlier, according to information posted on its website. 

Citizens President and CEO Tim Cerio said last week he expects the policy count to top 1.5 million by the end of the year. 

Citizens, which was created as an insurer of last resort, has seen massive growth during the past two years as private insurers have dropped customers and raised rates because of financial problems. 

By comparison, Citizens had 569,868 policies on March 31, 2021, and 817,926 policies on March 31, 2022.