One lawmaker wants to direct the state’s $10 billion budget surplus to that specific cause.
As Florida continues to struggle to find a way to slow the rising cost of home insurance, one lawmaker from Palm Beach County has suggested that it’s time to offer Floridians money to help them to keep up.
House Bill 41 has been introduced for the upcoming legislative session in the state.
“Right now, we have to focus on real solutions,” said Rep. Jervonte Edmonds (D-West Palm Beach). Edmonds introduced House Bill 41 for the upcoming legislative session. It is meant to form a grant program that would award $1,500 for adults under 65 years old, and $2,500 for those aged 65 years and higher.
“We had a bill last year called My Safe Florida Home, which gave people grants to help fix up their homes, so this bill is kind of modeled after that,” explained Edmonds, who believes that this money could be used to help Floridians to pay for their home insurance as well as their car coverage or even a mortgage payment.
The money for the home insurance grant would come from the surplus in the state’s budget.
Florida has a $10 billion surplus in its budget. This, said Edmonds, could be used for the grants to be send to Floridians to make it easier for them to afford their vital coverage. Edmonds isn’t alone in his belief that these funds could be used to support residents of the state in their economic struggle.
“There is so much more money that we have and that we love to brag about, the surplus and the budget and how much money we have,” said Senator Tina Polsky (D-Boca Raton) in a recent WPTV insurance town hall. “We should put money to where people need it. This is the economic issue of our time.”
“It is an absolute concern we have,” added Representative Toby Overdorf (R-Palm City) during the town hall “I do believe that we are going to be doing something on that this coming year.”
Though home insurance reforms were passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in Florida this year, there remains significant debate regarding how long it will take for those reforms to have an impact on the rates people are paying for their coverage. According to Edmonds, millions of Floridians can’t wait that long.
