Florida’s Republican mayors wade into property insurance crisis

TALLAHASSEE — Coming up with solutions to Florida’s homeowners insurance crisis has been primarily the purview of state legislators and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But this week, a new group of Republican mayors is out with ideas of its own.

The Florida Republican Mayors Public Policy Association is endorsing two bills in Congress that would provide tax breaks for victims of disasters and those who buy flood insurance.

The endorsements, which were sent to Florida’s legislative delegation this week, are the first official proposals by the organization, whose members include Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, who is its chairperson, and Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector. The group says it wants to find solutions to the state’s problems.

“Our mayors tell us that the high cost of property insurance is top of mind to their residents and that we need to focus on ways to ameliorate these high costs and find solutions,” said the organization’s executive director, Helen Aguirre Ferré.

The ideas are also a tacit acknowledgement that despite years of reforms by DeSantis and the Legislature, Florida’s homeowners insurance rates might be stabilizing but aren’t falling.

Lawmakers’ primary response to the crisis has been to make it harder to sue insurance companies. A more favorable environment for insurers would lead to competition that would eventually reduce rates, they say.

“It doesn’t happen overnight,” said Ferré, a former spokesperson for DeSantis and former executive director of the Republican Party of Florida.

The organization this week urged senators to pass the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act, which passed the U.S. House with wide bipartisan support last month. Every member of the Florida delegation present for the vote supported the bill.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., would allow victims of hurricanes and federally declared disasters to avoid income taxes on compensation they receive for those disasters. Some people end up paying taxes on such compensation depending on their tax bracket, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., said last month.

The mayors are also urging Congress to pass the Flood Insurance Relief Act, sponsored by Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Sen. Rick Scott. The bill was introduced in April and has not received a hearing.

The legislation would allow individuals earning $200,000 or less, or households earning $400,000 or less, to deduct their flood insurance premiums from their taxes.

The savings could be significant as National Flood Insurance Program premiums rise and as more people are required to get flood insurance. DeSantis and the Legislature in 2022 required nearly every person with a policy with state-run Citizens Property Insurance get flood insurance by 2027.

DeSantis and lawmakers this year suspended state taxes on homeowners and flood insurance premiums, a modest break that could save some people a couple hundred dollars this year.

During Florida’s last insurance crisis in the early 2000s, state officials including then-Gov. Jeb Bush pushed Congress to create a national catastrophe fund to help communities across the country recover from storms, fires and other disasters. It passed the U.S. House in 2007, but died in the U.S. Senate after then-President George W. Bush threatened to veto it.

Ferré said that idea came up among the mayors, but they did not pursue it.

“What we’re looking at right now is how can we lend support to these initiatives that are already in the pipeline,” she said.