Citizens Property Insurance has received 827 claims and has paid out just $284,000 as a result of Hurricane Hermine, the insurer's Board of Governors was told Wednesday.
The state-backed property insurer has closed out 327 of the claims, meaning the total cost will rise after all the claims are settled. But Citizens' claims are small in the context of the state Office of Insurance Regulation's estimate of a statewide total of 17,170 claims and $86 million in insured damages through last Friday.
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Jay Adams, Citizens' chief of claims, said the impact on Citizens from the Category 1 hurricane, which made landfall Sept. 2 in Wakulla County near Tallahassee, will be low because many of the claims did not exceed the policies' hurricane deductibles or involved flooding and storm surge that are not covered by the policies.
Some 64 percent of the claims were in the Tampa Bay region, with Pinellas County policyholders filing 248 claims, the most in the state. Policyholders in Leon County, which is home to the state capital and had its tree canopy shredded by the storm, only filed 19 claims with Citizens.
In contrast, policyholders in Miami-Dade County, which was far removed from the hurricane's landfall, filed 25 claims.
"Every time the state of Florida has any type of event that passes through, regardless of whether South Florida gets hit, we always have claims from that market," Adams said.
He said Hermine did "get pretty close" to Miami-Dade as it moved through the Florida Keys, causing "some serious rain" in the region. But Hermine was only a tropical wave at that time and did not strengthen to a hurricane until it reached the Gulf of Mexico.