Citizens is updating our rules to comply with recent legislative changes. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has approved these changes effective July 1, 2023, as well as changes to when personal property can be removed, effective retroactively to May 31, 2023.

Personal Property

Effective as of May 31, 2023, Citizens has revised Rule 400-B-Coverage C Options to allow personal property to be excluded at any time (including midterm), which will provide policyholders greater flexibility with coverage choices.

Note: Coverage C can only be re-added at renewal.

Underwriting Review Period

For any new-business policies, the underwriting review period (discovery period) will change from 90 to 60 days on July 1, 2023. During this time, Citizens can cancel a policy for failure to satisfy underwriting requirements.

Note: This excludes policies that have been placed with Citizens due to receivership or insolvency. In those cases, the underwriting review period will remain 90 days.

Claims

Citizens cannot cancel or non-renew policies until damage has been repaired or one year after the final claim payment, whichever is earlier, if such damage was caused by a covered peril.

Note: A different provision is applicable when damage is caused by a hurricane or wind loss following a declaration of emergency, and when the OIR has filed an order.

FIGA

An application for coverage cannot be denied by Citizens solely because of unrepaired damage that is the subject of a Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) claim.

Windstorm and Contents Coverage Exclusion Forms
The statements required for the windstorm exclusion or contents exclusion form can be either handwritten or typed by the policyholder. The applicable forms are:

• Request to Exclude Contents Coverage (CIT CO-1)
• Request to Exclude Windstorm and Hail Coverage (CIT WO-1)

Resources

• On the Agents site, select Personal > PR-M or PR-W, and you can view the updated required document guides and product guides by policy type on the right side of the page.

Policy form changes will be announced later this year.