Governor Charlie Crist boldly tipped the scales of the property market toward a state-sponsored approach when he convinced lawmakers last year to transform Citizens Property Insurance Corporation from the state's market of last resort to a de facto competitive state insurer. At the time, the public policy decision was accompanied by a chorus of concerns among the industry that warned it could lead to an explosion of growth in what is already the state's number one provider of homeowners' coverage.

A year later, however, the evidence has borne out that those fears were unfounded at best and premature at worst. Citizens' population has continued to hold steady despite the decision to roll back rates and expand its coverage to include other risks. As of March, the insurer had 1.25 million policies in force, a number that is actually a small decrease from the 1.3 million policyholders it had in 2006 and 2007. While the stability in the number of Citizens' policyholders can be attributed to a variety of factors –including the lack of hurricane losses in 2006 and 2007 — the number one reason is far and away the reemergence of the private market and its willingness to assume Citizens' policies.

Since 2006, 20 new companies have been licensed to write business in the state, and recently the Office of Insurance Regulation released a list of 10 companies that are authorized to remove more than 450,000 policies from Citizens. Experts point to a number of reasons for the growth of the domestic market, including several provisions designed to stimulate the market. Among other things, lawmakers doubled the capacity of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund from $15 billion to $28 billion while offering the coverage at bargain-basement prices.