Citizens: More small business insurance

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. --Citizens Property Insurance, Florida's largest home insurer, will move forward with a plan to offer more coverage for small businesses.

The state-created company's board of governors on Thursday voted to move forward with a plan for offering more commercial property insurance, something lawmakers directed the company to do during a special session on property insurance issues in January.

"Our goal is to make coverage available as quickly as possible to the Florida small business community, which is in dire need of commercial coverage," Citizens Chairman Bruce Douglas said.

Citizens plans to take over about 850 policies from another special state-created insurance pool, the Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association, that was put into place last fall by emergency order of the Financial Services Commission to deal with the problem of commercial coverage not being available.

Citizens said it plans to begin writing, on a short term basis, wind-only coverage for small businesses by June 1 so they will have coverage in time for hurricane season.

The company will offer more comprehensive multiperil policies by Sept. 1. Those policies would also include wind coverage, the company said.