What's in Store this Hurricane Season?
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation
Citizens provides last-resort personal and commercial property/casualty insurance to Floridians unable to find coverage.
As the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season begins, the Catastrophe Operations (CAT Ops) team at Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is shifting from the planning and testing phases to the ready phase – ensuring we’re prepared to quickly and efficiently execute a storm response for our customers.
As Florida’s legislatively created insurer of last resort, the hard work that goes into the company’s Catastrophe Response Master Plan makes us confident we can stand behind the “Citizens Is Ready ” motto when and if our customers need us.
Every year, the CAT Ops team and Citizens prepare to respond to a Florida landfall – not if there is a Florida landfall. We analyze data and consider our growing policies-in-force (PIF) count, technological capabilities, vendor commitments, and experience. Our new strategic imperatives, outlined by our CEO Timothy M. Cerio , also helped shape this year’s hurricane season planning.
New Goals for Catastrophe Response in 2024
Some of the major new factors in this year’s planning were implementing a new phone system, CXOne, and completing new contracts with independent adjusting (IA) firms. When you combine these two factors, one goal this year is to improve the management of independent adjusters for greater efficiency. Another goal is to use language within the new contracts to increase accountability within our independent adjusting firm relationships.
More importantly, the new phone system and IA contracts are intended to enhance our customers’ experience by reducing claims cycle time and improving communication with our policyholders who report losses from storms. These improvements also support the strategic initiative of reducing assessment risk by reducing overall loss adjustment expenses.
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What’s Ahead for This Season?
So, what does this season have in store for Florida? All indications are that the Atlantic hurricane season is poised for an above-average year in both the number of storms and number of landfalls.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its final prediction for this season, forecasting an 85% chance of an above-normal year. They are forecasting a range of 17 to 25 total named storms, with eight to 13 becoming hurricanes and four to seven rising to the level of major hurricanes.
Several factors are leading to this above-average forecast. Those include near-record warm water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, the development of La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean, reduced Atlantic trade winds, and less wind shear.?
This hurricane season also features the potential for an above-normal West African monsoon, which can produce African easterly waves that seed some of the strongest and longest-lived Atlantic storms. These conditions tend to favor tropical storm formation.
However, even the best technology and most experienced forecasters can’t give us exact times, locations, and strengths of hurricane landfalls.
Citizens’ Chief Insurance Officer Jay Adams, CSPO, CSM may have said it best at the recent Insurance Operations Town Hall when he said nobody has a crystal ball. Even without the crystal ball to tell us what exactly the impact to Florida this year will be, I’m confident our team has put us in the best position possible to serve our policyholders in their time of need.
Sean is the Director of Catastrophe Operations for Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.