The Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Mission Review Task Force has spoken, and changes will begin to take place! On Tuesday, January 6, 2008 the Task Force met in Tampa, Hillsborough County to decide what changes will have to be made in order to revert Citizens back to an insurer that is only used as a last resort by Florida State residents, the kind of company that insurance seekers would want to avoid.

The result was a recommendation from the task force to the state to start raising Citizens Property Insurance Corp's annual rates on an average of 10% after 2010. This recommendation will likely force individual policy holders to turn to a private insurer. Other recommendations include: new policyholders and their agents must sign a certificate stating that they could not find any other form of coverage or that the coverage that they did find is over 15% higher than the rates at Citizens, also that Citizens will be prohibited from insuring any new homes or condominiums that are located on the coastal areas. The most controversial of the recommendations is whether or not to allow current policyholders the option to refuse a private insurers offer to remove their policy from Citizens.

The task force will meet again on January 22, 2009 in Jacksonville to make more recommendations for submission to Governor Crist by January 31, 2009. I'll keep ya' posted!