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You’re home insurance rates would increase under legislation moving in the last week of the 2012 legislative session. The bill would cut two billion dollars from the state CAT fund and force private insurers to buy more expensive reinsurance. Those higher costs would be passed on to consumers, but as Whitney Ray tells us, how much your premium would increase is different depending on who you ask.

A move to reduce the state’s financial risk means you would pay more. Lawmakers want to cut the CAT fund from 17 billion to 15 billion. The bill’s sponsor Steve Oelrich says it’s needed to protect Florida from bankruptcy if a major storm hits.

“Hopefully in the case of a big disaster we would not have a catastrophic bill due,” said Oelrich.

Cutting the CAT fund would force private insurance companies to buy more expensive reinsurance in the private market. The cost would be passed on to consumers through higher premiums.

“We are looking at probably less than one percent a year,” said Oelrich.

State Senator Mike Fasano disputes the prediction.

“What the proponents say is just a couple of percentage points, but there’s no guarantee. No one knows what reinsurance is going to cost,” said Fasano.

Another bill to reduce the state’s risk was weakened Monday. It allows unregulated, out-of-state insurance companies to take policies out of Citizens.

The original bill called for Citizens to notify policyholders by mail 30 days before their insurer was switched. It would then be up to the policyholder to fight to stay in Citizens. If they ignored the letter they would be automatically taken out of Citizens.

“Individuals have the right, when those policies come due, to review those policies and determine themselves if they’d like to keep them or not,” said Sen. Thad Altman.

Senator Thad Altman amended the bill. Now Citizens’ customers must opt in if they want to be insured by the unregulated, mostly more expensive insurers. The bill’s sponsor says the amendment all but ruins his legislation.

Supporters of both proposals say they’re simply trying to protect all policyholders. They say if Citizens continues to support 1.5 million policies and the CAT fund isn’t reduced, when the big one hits all Floridians will be paying more through increased assessments.