What is a Citizens insurance assessment?

What is a Citizens assessment, and who can be charged one?

Citizens is funded by the premiums it collects, the reinsurance it buys, and the surplus (reserves) it has built up in its accounts. When a catastrophic hurricane season produces claims that exceed all three, Florida law gives Citizens’ board the authority to recoup the shortfall directly from policyholders. This is done through assessments, under Florida Statute 627.351(6). This isn’t one flat charge. It’s a layered structure with three separate mechanisms, each reaching a different group of people.

The first layer is the Citizens Policyholder Surcharge (sometimes called the market-equity surcharge). It can be levied at up to 15% of premium per Citizens account and applies only to Citizens policyholders. If that isn’t enough to cover a Coastal Account deficit, Citizens can levy a Regular Assessment of up to 2% on other property/casualty insurers doing business in Florida. Those companies then recoup it from their own policyholders through rate filings. Citizens policyholders are excluded from this tier. If the deficit still isn’t covered, Citizens can levy an Emergency Assessment of up to 10% per year, for as many years as it takes, on essentially every property/casualty policyholder in the state, including Citizens’ own customers. So the honest answer to “who can be charged” is: it depends which tier is triggered, and the broadest tier does not spare anyone based on who their carrier is.

How does a FIGA assessment differ from a Citizens assessment?

A Citizens assessment and a FIGA assessment are easy to confuse because both can show up as a surcharge line on a Florida property insurance bill. But they fund completely different things. A Citizens assessment exists to cover a deficit inside Citizens Property Insurance Corporation itself, after a storm season depletes its own surplus. A FIGA assessment has nothing to do with Citizens’ finances at all. It’s levied by the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association when a private insurance company becomes insolvent and can’t pay its own covered claims. FIGA steps in to pay those claims, then recoups the cost by assessing its member insurers (nearly every property/casualty insurer licensed in Florida), who in turn add the charge as a uniform percentage surcharge on their policyholders’ bills.

FIGA assessments are generally capped around 2% of premium per year, though an emergency assessment tied to large hurricane-driven insolvencies can run up to 4%. As of this writing, FIGA has an active 1% emergency assessment on Florida property and casualty policies that is scheduled to be discontinued for policies effective October 1, 2026 and later. The practical distinction for a homeowner: a Citizens assessment is about Citizens running short; a FIGA assessment is about some other, unrelated insurer failing. You can be on the hook for either one, or both, regardless of which company currently insures your home.

Why do people call this the “hurricane tax”?

Citizens itself uses the nickname “hurricane tax” to describe these charges. The label fits because the broadest tier, the emergency assessment, behaves less like an insurance cost and more like a mandatory, statewide levy. It is not optional, and it is not underwritten based on your individual risk. It can land on people who have no connection to Citizens whatsoever: a renter with a renters policy, a boat owner, or a driver with only an auto policy can all be swept into an emergency assessment, because it applies across most lines of property and casualty insurance statewide, not just homeowners policies. Unlike a premium, which reflects the risk on your specific policy, an assessment is a flat percentage everyone in the assessed pool pays to cover a deficit they had no role in creating.

Does moving to a private carrier change your exposure to an assessment?

Partially, but not as much as many homeowners assume. Moving off a Citizens policy does eliminate your exposure to the Citizens Policyholder Surcharge, since that tier only applies to people who actually hold a Citizens policy. That is a real reduction, and it’s the largest single tier, capped at 15% per account. But it does not make you exempt from the other two mechanisms. The Regular Assessment tier flips the exposure: it is levied on “all other insurers” besides Citizens, meaning a private carrier’s policyholders are exactly who that 2% tier is aimed at, while Citizens policyholders are excluded from it. And the Emergency Assessment, the largest and most flexible tier, up to 10% annually for multiple years, applies to essentially all property/casualty policyholders statewide, Citizens customers included, with no carve-out for people who insure privately.

The same logic applies to FIGA: since FIGA assessments are collected across nearly all property/casualty insurers licensed in Florida, switching from Citizens to a private carrier does not remove your exposure to a FIGA assessment either. It just changes which insurer is collecting it from you. In short, which carrier you choose shifts which specific tier you’re exposed to, but it does not fully insulate you from the possibility of an assessment showing up on a bill.

When have assessments actually been levied in Florida?

Citizens has levied an emergency assessment before. After the extraordinarily active 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, eight storms in two years, including Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in 2004 and Dennis, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005, Citizens issued roughly $1.38 billion in bonds to cover a shortfall of about $1.7 billion. To pay that debt down, Citizens levied a statewide emergency assessment beginning in 2007 at 1.4% of premium, later reduced to 1% in 2011. That assessment ran for eight years and was ultimately paid off in June 2015, about eighteen months ahead of its original 2017 schedule. It is the clearest real-world example of the emergency assessment tier actually reaching non-Citizens policyholders across the state.

Separately, FIGA has also levied assessments in the past tied to insurer insolvencies. As noted above, a 1% FIGA emergency assessment has been in effect and is scheduled to wind down for policies effective October 1, 2026 and later. Based on the research available for this page, Citizens itself has not had an active policyholder surcharge or emergency assessment in effect since the 2015 payoff. Assessment status can change after a bad storm season, so this should be treated as a snapshot rather than a permanent fact.

Where can you check the current surplus and assessment status?

Citizens publishes its own assessment status, financial statements, and surplus information directly at citizensfla.com/assessments. That is the authoritative source to check before or after a hurricane season for the current, exact numbers; this page will not repeat a specific dollar figure that could go stale. What can be said directionally, based on reporting available as of mid-2026: Citizens’ policy count has fallen sharply as its depopulation program has moved policies to private carriers, reaching an all-time low of roughly 278,662 policies by June 2026, down from a peak of about 1.41 million policies in October 2023. Coverage of Citizens’ board meetings and rate filings in late 2025 and 2026 has described the company’s reserve position as strong and Florida’s broader property insurance market as the healthiest it has been in roughly a decade, aided by 2022–2023 litigation reforms and a lighter run of storm losses. None of that guarantees an assessment won’t happen after a future severe season. It is simply the direction things have been moving. For the exact current surplus figure and any active assessment, go to the source directly.