In 2022, Melissa Marro got a notice from her home insurance company that her rates would soon go up to a degree she found shockingly high. The only option, her insurance agent told her, was to see if she qualified for Citizens Property Insurance, the state created and taxpayer-owned property insurance company. Marro hired a licensed inspector to come to her Palm Harbor home in the Tampa Bay region to do a 4-point inspection and a wind mitigation inspection and Citizens agreed to insure her home at a much cheaper price. Shortly after the policy started with Citizens, she was informed she needed another home inspection. Citizens hired a company called Sutton Inspection Bureau who provided a factually deceptive report to Citizens, and she was issued a cancellation by Citizens.
The inspection scam ordered by Citizens appears to be a new practice by the insurance giant to drop homeowners. By the end of 2023, Citizens Insurance estimates that it will have ordered about 300,000 home inspections. To exasperate the situation, the people hired by Citizens to do the new home inspections are not licensed by the state of Florida. Citizens is relying upon reports made by those unlicensed inspectors to make decisions that can upend the lives of Florida residents.
Citizens acknowledge these inspectors are not licensed. “Field inspectors are not licensed but all decisions are made by licensed inspectors and then reviewed by Citizens’ underwriters,” Michael Peltier, a spokesman for Citizens stated. Peltier stated that only 62 inspections resulted in a vendor error complaint and while one error is too many — especially if it affects your policy, it appears that, overall, the program is pretty accurate.
Mark Friedlander, the director of communications at the Insurance Information Institute stated the admission that Citizens are using unlicensed inspectors for the program is alarming. Taking shortcuts is extremely concerning, and the insurance companies should be accountable for that. The use of the unlicensed inspections in depopulation efforts raises questions about how Citizens is shifting homeowner policies to the private market.
However, as a public company, Citizens is immune to many of the same kinds of lawsuits that private companies face. It is likely that Citizens takes advantage of their status to do things that deviate from industry standards.
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