Rick Scott Looks Forward to New President of 'Too Big' Citizens

Gov. Rick Scott released the following statement on Barry Gilway being offered the position of president at Citizens Property Insurance and the service of Tom Grady as the interim president.

I would like to thank Tom Grady for his service as interim president of Citizens Property Insurance, and congratulate Barry Gilway on his appointment as the new president.

During his leadership, Tom Grady worked hard to educate Floridians about the dangerous position in which Citizens has put this state. Citizens is too big. As of June 1, it has grown to about 1.5 million policies and roughly half a trillion dollars in total exposure while its cash on hand is only $6 billion. No matter how you crunch numbers, the experts acknowledge that Citizens has grown too big, and doesnt have enough money to cover its policyholders in the case of a major hurricane, let alone the risk of getting hit more than once this season.

Citizens has put Florida in a position where policyholders will have a sizeable assessment, but they wont be the only ones paying dearly for it. Every policyholder in the state, even those who only have auto insurance policies, will also be assessed, regardless of their insurance company.

I look forward to working with the Citizens board and Barry Gilway to ensure Citizens is vigilant about not taking on additional risk, and will support and nurture a robust private property insurance market in Florida. I expect Citizens to reduce the exposure to Floridas families and return to being the insurer of last resort.