Florida Gov. Rick Scott on why he signed property insurance bill

Speaking to South Florida reporters on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott explained his decision to sign a propery insurance bill that critics have decried as "anti-consumer."

Via the Miami Herald's Laura Figuerora:

"The insurance bill that I signed starts the process of moving Citizens from being the insurance company of first resort to the insurance company of last resort. What all of us as taxpayers have to understand is right now the way Citizens is set up, we’re on the hook for over $500 billion worth of risk, depending on the size of the storm. So what this bill does is start the process of allowing us to recruit other companies to come back into our state, so we get more insurance companies and hopefully they will make sure that it’s fairly priced.

“On top of that, we have to focus on fixing some of the things that cause our insurance to be more expensive than it should be. As examples, there’s a lot of examples where we have sinkholes that individuals take the money, they don’t actually fix their homes and so was it really a problem or not? On top of that, do you need five years to file a claim?

"My focus is on making sure we have a robust insurance market and we move Citizens to the insurance company of last resort, and we make sure that we can recruit other companies to come back to the state.”