Florida News That Impacts You – May 20th, 2024
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
- Governor DeSantis signed ten bills into law heading into the weekend. Among them, is the Residential Tenancies bill which immediately reclassified Florida financial institutions as any bank, credit union, trust company, savings bank, or saving or thrift association doing business under a state or federal charter. The purpose of the reclassification is to ensure landlords place tenant security deposits in credible financial institutions. The Pregnancy and Parenting Resource Website bill is also now law. By January 1st of next year, the Florida Department of Health is to create and maintain a website that provides pregnancy and parenting resources. The Offenses Involving Critical Infrastructure law will take effect July 1st. The new law will raise penalties for any person found to have improperly tampered with critical infrastructure. The governor also signed the Town of Orchid, Indian River County bill into law. Under state law a town with 500 or fewer people may conduct official meetings outside of its boundary as needed. Orchid has grown to 531 people at last count. The new law will continue to allow Orchid to conduct meetings outside of its boundary provided it’s within 5 miles of the town until it reaches a population of 1,250 or more residents.
- Heading into what’s expected to be an active hurricane season Florida received good news regarding the state’s Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. The most recent report shows $10.16 billion in funds that are available to pay claims if needed up from $7.7 billion near the end of last year’s hurricane season. With the state’s ability to borrow additional funds if needed, the total payout ability of the state’s fund is now approximately $17 billion. The state’s Cat Fund is a reinsurance pool for the state’s domestic insurers. Related...
- Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation is touting the continued improvements in Florida’s property insurance market heading into this year’s hurricane season. According to a statement from the OIR: OIR continues to see overall market stabilization following the historic legislative reforms of 2022 and 2023 that enhanced protections for consumers, strengthened Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, and encouraged investment by insurers and reinsurers by providing clarity to the market and the risk they underwrite. The report also notes that from January of 2023 through March of 2024, 389 thousand property insurance policies had been moved from Citizen’s Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, to private insurance companies.
- Hot again today highs near 90 which is about 7 degrees higher than usual for this date. Afternoon thunderstorms are possible once again. While still above normal for this time of year the weather should be a bit cooler than last week’s record high temps. Highs in the upper 80’s are expected throughout the week.
- Gas prices dropped four cents per gallon over the weekend. The average price statewide for regular unleaded is currently $3.44 per gallon. In Palm Beach County the average price is $3.65 per gallon, in Martin the average is $3.50 and in Indian River County the average is $3.39 per gallon.