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Article snippet: With Hurricane Irma’s destructive force having pushed north, Floridians are beginning to check on what has become of their homes. They may also want to check on their insurers. The big national carriers like State Farm and Allstate cut back on writing homeowners’ insurance policies in Florida years ago, citing catastrophic risks and unhelpful state regulators. Those reductions left a vacuum that was filled, initially, with a state-owned insurer, Citizens Property Insurance. Eventually, the state offered incentives to coax some brave new insurers into the market. As a result, all that stands between many Florida homeowners and potential ruin is one state-owned insurer and dozens of relatively little-known companies that do most — or all — of their business in the state. They all have the benefit of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which, with no major storms in the past 12 years, has $17 billion at the ready — a sum that may not be nearly enough. “This can really be a hurricane that can bust the insurance industry,” said Shahid Hamid, a finance professor at Florida International University’s International Hurricane Research Center. “When I saw Irma’s track, I was tremendously concerned.” Whether policyholders can be made whole will most likely depend on reinsurance — the custom-tailored insurance that the Florida insurers themselves take out — and other financial vehicles that they have to fall back on. But the variables at play — the storm’s path, the comp... Link to the full article to read more