A Democratic Florida state senator said Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis should leave the campaign trail and return to the Sunshine State.
State Sen. Tracie Davis, who represents Jacksonville, urged the Florida governor and presidential candidate to call a special legislative session to address property insurance issues, News4Jax reported Tuesday.
“Governor, come home and take care of your state. We all know that he’s running for president, but we have real problems, real issues, and the crisis with property insurance,” Davis said. Actually no, Senator, keep him away. He does nothing for us here.https://t.co/SUzsxCyIDO
— Lesley Abravanel 🪩 (@lesleyabravanel) July 13, 2023
“Governor, come home and take care of your state,” Davis said, according to the outlet. “We all know that he’s running for president, but we have real problems, real issues, and the crisis with property insurance.”
Davis emphasized that Florida homeowners are facing record-breaking property insurance hikes and outright cancellations of their policies. He said that Gov. DeSantis should redirect his focus on creating savings and benefits for Florida homeowners struggling to pay their property insurance bill this summer. (RELATED: DeSantis Says He Wouldn’t Be Trump’s Running Mate: ‘I’m Not A Number Two Guy’)
Floridians spend an average $6,000 per year on property insurance, more than three times than the rest of the country, and rates are expected to jump by up to 40 percent this year, CBS News reported. The average price of property insurance per year for most Americans is $1,700. On Tuesday, Farmers Insurance announced it was pulling out of Florida, forcing around 100,000 residents to seek new coverage.
The last special session successfully put legislation in place that cut down on insurance fraud, excessive litigation and one-way attorney fees for property insurance claims, Republican lawmakers said, according to News4Jax.
Davis, however, argued that although previous special sessions gave insurance companies around $3 billion, they failed “to provide any savings for policyholders at all,” per the outlet.