Significant Progress Reported on FIRM’s Reduce Insurance Premium Project

Fair Insurance Rates in Monroe (FIRM) is pleased to announce significant progress in its comprehensive analysis of windstorm risk in Monroe County, Florida. The RIPP (Reduce Insurance Premiums Project) study involves the inspection of a target number of 704 homes from Key West to Key Largo. To date, nearly 500 homes have been inspected, and another 170 homes have been volunteered for inspection. Results are confidential and will be reported publicly only in the aggregate.

RIPP was undertaken by FIRM to prove its contention that the sturdy construction of homes in Monroe County required by strict building codes reduces windstorm damage risk. Study evidence will be used to help identify solutions to ever-rising windstorm insurance premiums. Those solutions may include lowering community rates by Citizens Property Insurance, (the state-run insurance company that helped fund the RIPP study), attracting private insurance companies to the Keys, and /or creating a new mutual or reciprocal insurance company to offer windstorm insurance in our community.

Homes were selected randomly through a statistically rigorous research model designed by risk consultancy Applied Research Analytics. Each home was assigned one of 32 strata based on construction type, era, and location. Inspections are being performed by Solaria, a Marathon-based engineering firm.
Individual home data is confidential and will not be shared with Citizens or any government entity. Each home is identified in the analysis by a code, not by address. Homeowners may choose to receive their own confidential report at the conclusion of the study.

FIRM was founded over eight years ago to combat escalating windstorm insurance premiums in the Florida Keys. Keys residents faced dramatic increases in their windstorm coverage through Citizens Property Insurance, despite few claims having been filed. Analysis of premiums collected versus claims paid demonstrated the increases were not justified.

FIRM succeeded in rolling back a 20% increase that had been implemented in August of 2006, and derailing a proposed 32% increase planned for 2007. Since then, FIRM was successful in slowing the rate of increase on wind insurance costs and in helping to repeal the most onerous aspects of 2012’s federal flood insurance reform. Year after year, FIRM works to hold back more increases and changes in coverage that adversely affect Keys residents.