By Mitch Perry, The Florida Phoenix <\/p>\n
The Byron Donalds campaign is aggressively attacking David Jolly\u2019s plan to reduce homeowners\u2019 insurance rates.<\/p>\n
The Democratic candidate for governor is proposing a state catastrophic insurance fund that would remove hurricane and wind coverage from the private insurance market. He says doing so could reduce homeowners\u2019 insurance costs by 60% to 70%.<\/p>\n
Donalds counters on the campaign trail and in a television ad that Jolly\u2019s plan would institute a $1,000 \u201churricane tax\u201d on Florida families.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all lies,\u201d Jolly responded during a press conference in St. Petersburg this week when asked about the ad. He said his team has never published a detailed plan for anyone to dissect, and emphasized that \u201cit does not include an additional $1,000 tax for homeowners. No governor is going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Donalds campaign cites a recently published study from Florida State University as the source of its contention that Jolly\u2019s plan would blow a hole in Florida voters\u2019 pockets if approved. But that FSU study isn\u2019t based on Jolly\u2019s proposal, but on a plan first introduced by\u00a0a bipartisan pair of Florida lawmakers in 2024.<\/p>\n
That proposal aimed to transform Citizens Property Insurance Corp. \u2014 the state-backed property insurer of last resort \u2014 by allowing all homeowners to become eligible to buy Citizens coverage specifically for wind damage.<\/p>\n
What Jolly has proposed is a state-backed \u201ccatastrophic fund\u201d for homeowners\u2019 insurance, fully removing hurricane and wind coverage from the private marketplace and putting it into a state sovereign wealth fund, which he contends would substantially cut homeowners insurance rates.<\/p>\n
He says the fund would be paid for by making insurance companies pay taxes that they now avoid, adding that fees on real estate transactions (better known as Florida documentary tax stamps) and existing tourist development taxes (TDTs), are also \u201con the table\u201d to build up that fund.<\/p>\n
Donalds said using TDT funds wouldn\u2019t raise nearly enough money to fund Jolly\u2019s plan, and that those funds are imposed at the county level. \u201cI thought he believed in local control?\u201d he said this week. \u201cApparently not.\u201d<\/p>\n
FSU study on 2025 proposed plan<\/p>\n
The FSU study was published last month and lists potential advantages and risks for policymakers if all homeworkers used Citizens for wind coverage. Among the potential advantages: \u201cAn improved private market study and insurance solvency; Potential for lower cost of capital through public financing and greater uniformity in coverage and pricing structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The negatives include: \u201cThe concentration of catastrophic risk in a single entity; Increased likelihood and magnitude of statewide assessments; Potential impact on state capital perception; Reduced competition and innovation in insurance markets; and exposure to special interest pressures in rate-setting and funding decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FSU study also says that when the state assumes the risk of wind accounts, premiums could rise anywhere from 21% to 139%.<\/p>\n
Donalds says it would be a government boondoggle, comparable to the federal Affordable Care Act. \u201cAnytime the government takes over, it gets worse. The premiums get higher, and you don\u2019t get the coverage that you were promised,\u201d he said this week during a roundtable discussion in Indian Rocks Beach.<\/p>\n
Jolly responds by noting that the state already has a state catastrophic fund (called the\u00a0Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund), created in a special legislative session following the destruction wrought upon Florida by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. \u201cRight now, that fund only reimburses insurance companies for a share of their hurricane losses. It is a bailout for insurers,\u201d he says on his\u00a0campaign website.<\/p>\n
Jolly notes that existing state law already says that if a devastating storm or series of storms leaves Citizens in a deficit, the company can charge its own policyholders a surcharge of up to 15%, and if a deficit still remains it can charge an emergency assessment of up to 10% per year on other property and casualty policies in the state not provided by Citizens, including homeowners, renters, and those with auto insurance policies.<\/p>\n
The FSU study was commissioned in 2025 after Broward County Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel withdrew a legislative proposal (HB 13)\u00a0that would require Citizens to make windstorm coverage available to all homeowners in Florida. The proposal was originally floated during the 2024 legislative session by Cassel (a Democrat at the time) and former North Fort Myers Beach Republican Spencer Roach, and something similar was proposed by a Florida lawmaker in\u00a02006.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I really find interesting is that idea that I\u2019ve been talking about for several years, the Democratic potential nominee, David Jolly, runs on my idea,\u201d Cassel said on\u00a0This Week in South Florida\u00a0with Glenna Milberg right before last month\u2019s primary election. \u201cSo, it is the solution, it is one of the solutions for property insurance, and we as Republicans have taken that on and are studying it with the number one insurance program in the country to figure out how we can apply that across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donalds plan<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Donalds unveiled his \u201cBring Down the Bill\u201d property insurance package this week. Among its provisions:<\/p>\n
Reforming the Florida Hurricane Catastrophic Fund \u201cby reducing an unnecessary surcharge on policyholders when the fund is strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maintaining 2022 and 2023 legislation that that has resulted in a reduction of homeowners\u2019 insurance lawsuits that, in turn, has helped lower insurance companies\u2019 legal costs and resulted in\u00a0lower homeowner insurance premiums.<\/p>\n
Restructures the My Safe Florida Home grant and other grants by directing all state agencies receiving funding for projects that benefit homeowners to \u201ccoordinate on prioritizing grants for the greatest impact on homeowners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Create a \u201cInsurer Scorecard\u201d showing\u00a0pricing, claims approval rates, denial rates, and time to payment for every carrier in Florida.<\/p>\n
Work on reducing the number of Citizens policies. Since 2022, Citizens\u2019 policy count has dropped from 1.4 million in late 2023 to approximately 274,000, according to a\u00a0Citizens press release\u00a0in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would simply ask: Are you good with what Byron Donalds wants to continue in the state of Florida with homeowners\u2019 insurance? \u2018Cause he\u2019s offering more of the same and transparency,\u201d Jolly said on Monday. \u201cTransparency doesn\u2019t reduce costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donalds countered on Tuesday during an event in Hillsborough County that Jolly\u2019s homeowners\u2019 insurance plan was \u201ca big government takeover. That is Democrat policy 101. Blame everybody else, give it to the government. Make a grand promise that you know you can\u2019t pay for, and then by the time you\u2019re gone from office it\u2019s the next person\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mitch Perry, The Florida Phoenix The Byron Donalds campaign is aggressively attacking David Jolly\u2019s plan to reduce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-403558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}