Florida residents are still paying some of the highest homeowner insurance rates in the country and prices keep going up, resulting in some homeowners dropping coverage altogether and risking financial ruin if their home is damaged or destroyed.

Unfortunately, Florida officials have recently paused applications to the popular My Safe Florida Home program as funds have run dry. The popular program helped homeowners lower their premiums by hardening their homes against severe weather which can result in a discount on insurance coverage.

The program offers free home inspections and up to $10,000 per home for upgrades and improvements that help lower insurance premiums. While the program has been a success, officials announced last week that the programs funding has been exhausted.

The loss of funding was an unpleasant surprise for many Florida residents. “I don’t have hurricane impact windows and that’s very scary,” said Brenda Piccirillo in a recent WFLA channel 8 article. In addition to not being able to get help from the program, Piccirillo is facing a move to new insurer.

“Citizens is saying we may or may not pass you off with a new company and you may or may not see an increase with this company,” said Piccirillo in the WFLA article. “I have no idea who this company is or where they come from.”

Citizens Property, Florida’s insurer of last resort has started moving policyholders to private market insurers. According to their website, 132,000 homeowner policies have been dropped or moved to a new insurer since the beginning of the year.<\p>

Citizens, which is now the largest insurer in Florida, has been moving policyholders to private market insurers if they offer a policy that is not more that 20% higher than the Citizens premium.

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

Commercial Residential policies that receive an offer of coverage that is not more than 20% greater than Citizens’ premium are ineligible to remain with Citizens.”