Florida: a market in crisis—but is it too big to fail?

Florida accounts for some 10 percent of all cat risk globally, but the market is in crisis—again. A panel of experts discussed some of the challenges facing the state’s insurance carriers and what that means for the reinsurers that support them.

It’s big, but is it beautiful? Florida is a massive market for insurers and reinsurers, but it could be time to walk away. The market’s in crisis. Big cat risks, attritional losses, government interference and moral hazard mean some have had enough. Does Florida have a future and, if it does, what will it take for those abandoning the market to come back?

Those were among the questions considered during a recent discussion titled “The Florida insurance market crisis” at Intelligent Insurer’s Re/insurance Lounge, the online, on-demand platform for interviews and panel discussions with leading players in the market.

To consider the fate of insurance in the state key players coming at the market from a range of different perspectives took part: Glenn Clinton, who has 30 years of property and casualty underwriting experience in both insurance and reinsurance, and is a managing director for US property reinsurance at insurance-linked securities fund manager ILS Capital Management; Matt Junge, head of property solutions for the US and Canada and head of property underwriting, US Regional and National, at Swiss Re, leading a team responsible for underwriting, pricing, and analysis of property treaties for clients across the US; Adam Schwebach, a reinsurance broker at Willis Re, focused on the Florida property market and a long-term Tampa resident; and Karen Clark, a pioneer in catastrophe risk modelling and the founder of Karen Clark & Company, which provides catastrophe risk modelling and management solutions to the industry.