An property insurer of last resort in Florida is set to hand over hundreds of thousands of policies to the private sector later this month due to overwhelming demand.

Earlier this year, regulators in the Sunshine State approved proposals that would allow private insurers to take policies from the state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Citizens, which was created by the Florida Legislature in 2002, provides insurance to eligible Florida property owners unable to find insurance coverage in the private market. It is the largest insurer in the state.

On August 2, insurance commissioner Michael Yaworsky signed an order allowing 10 private insurance carriers to take on 413,808 policies from Citizens beginning in late October. According to a report by Florida Politics, in the last two weeks, a further 235,035 were approved for removal beginning in November.

Newsweek has contacted Citizens for verification on this number via email outside of normal working hours.

The number of Citizens policies has soared in recent years as private insurers dropped customers and raised rates due to losses caused by payouts and litigation. Citizens has 1,250,791 policies in force as of August 2024. In August 2019, five years ago, it had 420,366 active policies.

“Citizens is committed to helping its policyholders find coverage in the private market,” its website reads. “As required by Florida law, Citizens’ Depopulation Program matches Citizens policyholders with insurance companies interested in removing their policy from Citizens and providing private-market coverage for their policy.”

The depopulation will arrive not long after Hurricane Helene hit Florida and other eastern states at the end of September. With a death toll that has now surpassed 200 people, with hundreds more still reported missing, it is shaping up to be one of the worst storms in U.S. history.

The latest data released by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation shows that 84,400 claims have been made by homeowners and businesses since Hurricane Helene hit, with 42,219 of these being for residential properties. So far, 1,340 of these claims have been closed with a payment, while 2,712 have been closed without a payment. More than 38,000 insurance claims are still open.

Florida residents are grappling with some of the highest home insurance rates in the country. According to Bankrate, the average insurance cost for a home valued at $300,000 in October 2024 is $5,527 per year—way higher than the rate for a home of the same value in neighboring Georgia ($2,071) and Alabama ($2,745).

The average home insurance premium in Florida is $3,242 more expensive than the national average of $2,285. In some areas, costs can climb to in excess of $8,000. The state average is second only to Nebraska, where the average premium on a $300,000 home is $5,652.

Hurricane Helene has left a wake of death and destruction across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee after it made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26. Despite being downgraded to a tropical depression, hundreds were killed by the storm, millions are still without power, and the damage is estimated in the billions of dollars.

The number of confirmed deaths reached 214 Thursday after officials in the Carolinas released updates, according to a USA TODAY Network analysis. The storm wrought a level of destruction on western North Carolina not seen for over 100 years. Officials in North Carolina said deaths in the state had risen to 108, including 72 deaths in Buncombe County, as reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times. South Carolina has reported 41 fatalities, Georgia 33, Florida 19, Tennessee 11 and Virginia two.

Here is a closer look at the devastation left behind, captured by aerial photos taken by Nearmap, and satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies:

Contributing: Staff/Asheville Citizen-times; Sean Dougherty and Dinah Voyles Pulver/USA TODAY

More visual stories about Hurricane Helene: Need help in Asheville, NC, after Helene? Mapping locations of water, food, shelter, Wi-Fi

Starting Hurricane Helene cleanup? Here’s how to deal with flood and storm damage

How flood damage is cutting off North Carolina communities from emergency relief

Hurricane Helene was massive at landfall. Here’s how it compares with past storms

Hurricane season is not over yet: Why season winds mean Florida should stay on alert

Maps track Hurricane Helene’s 800-mile path of destruction across southeastern US

Maps show Hurricane Helene’s destructive path across Florida, Georgia

Emergency preparedness 101: What to pack in a ‘go bag’

KEATON BEACH — President Joe Biden stopped in north Florida for a whirlwind visit to meet with local leaders and residents reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene last week.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and John Louk, director of Taylor County Emergency Management, showed the president a FEMA map in a briefing on the side of the road in front of toppled trees and remnants of destroyed homes.

They detailed Helene’s catastrophic wind speed in Florida and explained how the storm cut a path of destruction into the Nature Coast, up to North Florida and whipped through South Georgia.

Preliminary damage estimates are a little over $50 million on the Taylor County coastline alone, said Andrew Morgan, the public information officer for the county’s emergency management agency.

About 250 to 300 homes on the county’s coast were lost or are uninhabitable, he said.

Florida continues to recover in the aftermath of the Category 4 storm, which left at least 19 dead, including at least 12 in Pinellas County — hundreds of miles away from where the storm made landfall. In the Southeast, the death toll surpassed 200 as the need for power and water in North Carolina grew more urgent for hundreds of thousands of residents.

On Thursday morning, the president arrived at Tallahassee International Airport in Air Force One and then departed on Marine One to tour ground zero of Helene’s landfall.

Bill Collins, a resident of Keaton Beach, was on his neighbor’s porch when the motorcade arrived and said he was glad to see the president make a stop in Taylor County.

“That’s what he needs to do. He’s supposed to go through and at least see with his own eyes,” Collins said.

He hopes Biden frees up more federal aid for states hit by Helene, especially North Carolina and Tennessee.

“We aren’t the only ones,” he told the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida. “We’re all in this together.”

In a post on X, Sen. Scott said he would be filing an appropriations bill to fund FEMA, the USDA and the SBA for Helene recovery efforts.

“During my meeting with President Biden, I stressed that the federal government’s response to hurricanes over the last two years has left too many Floridians, especially our farmers, hurting and with unmet needs – and this must be fixed NOW,” Scott wrote. 

He also criticized the federal government’s response to hurricanes Ian, Idalia and Debby.

“I’ll be fighting like hell to deliver disaster aid to our state, and ensure seamless debris removal guidance for our local communities, and I urged the federal officials there today to put Floridians and all Americans first by doing the same,” he said. 

In the briefing with the president, Louk said that while some of the homes are still standing, they are advising residents to inspect their homes for structural damage.

Biden, who donned a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses, spent time speaking with Taylor County’s first responders, including Sheriff Wayne Padgett.

“He was very nice, he shook all of our hands,” Morgan said.

Biden even sang “Happy Birthday” to one of the first responders.

“He was very supportive of what we have going on,” Morgan added.

The entire visit to Taylor County took no longer than two hours. 

Biden then returned to the Perry airport and boarded Marine One to head to Valdosta, Georgia. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis did not accompany the president on this visit. He also skipped out when Biden came to Florida after last year’s Hurricane Idalia, though he did meet with him after Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“No, it’s just we had this planned,” DeSantis said, when asked whether there was any reason he didn’t accompany Biden Thursday. DeSantis spoke from Ana Maria Island in Manatee County, more than 200 miles away from where Biden visited.

He held a press conference to announce three executive orders related to recovering from Helene: waiving local governments’ rental date requirements; allowing supervisors of elections affected by Helene to set up alternative polling places; and streamlining ports and supply chain operations to mitigate the effects of the port strike and get needed supplies into the state to aid recovery efforts.

Ahead of Thursday’s tour of devastation in Florida and Georgia, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefed reporters in the air on the way to Tallahassee airport. She trumpeted how the Biden administration will cover 100 percent of the costs associated “with things like debris removal, first responders, search and rescue, shelters, and mass feeding operations.”

“Still, we know there is more work to be done,” she said. “And we will be here, doing that work, for as long as it takes.”

Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com.