NU Online News Service, July 20, 4:00 p.m.EDT

Florida's last-resort insurer is looking to ask regulators foran average statewide rate increase of 10.4 percent for personalresidential multiperil and wind-only policies combined in 2011.

Including rates sought for renters, condominium owners andmobile homes, Citizens will be seeking a 9.4 percent for multiperilpolicies and wind-only policies combined, according to a report thestate-run insurer prepared for review by its board next week.

Citizens Property Insurance Corp. in 2009 was given the go-aheadby law to begin increasing rates in order to become moreactuarially sound, but premium increases are capped at 10 percentper policyholder to lessen the impact on its more than 1.1 millionpolicyholders in force as of the end of June.

Without the cap, Citizens said it would be seeking an averagerate increase statewide of 58 percent for multiperil and wind-onlypolicies.

Prior to the 2009 law, Citizens' rates had been frozen for threeyears.

According to an executive summary from a July 19 Citizenscommittee meeting, actuaries included non-catastrophe losses andsinkhole losses into the rates.

In modeling for personal residential policies, Citizens usedsoftware from AIR Worldwide. A version of the model was approved bythe Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology inJune, the report states.

Last year Citizens used a model from Risk Management Solutions,said spokeswoman Christine Turner Ashburn. For most lines there wasa close correlation between the models, but for commercialresidential multiperil the models differed greatly. AIR suggested arate decrease of 6.6 percent while RMS indicated a 12.5 percentincrease. Ms. Ashburn said Citizens settled on no increase for thisline.