Florida's small-time commercial landlords and many of the small-business owners who rent space from them have been hit with the same fast-rising insurance premiums that have been shocking homeowners since a series of hurricanes raked the state in 2004-05. Earlier this year, lawmakers handed the problem to Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer of last resort, whose commercial coverage until now has been limited to high-risk coastal areas. As a result, Citizens will offer windstorm coverage to commercial-property owners statewide starting June 1 - the official start of the 2007 hurricane season. It could find itself flooded with applications. As of April 30, Citizens had little more than 9,800 commercial policies in force a total dwarfed by its residential portfolio of more than 1.2 million policies. According to Sam Miller, executive vice president of the Florida Insurance Council, the state's commercial insurers are simply doing what residential insurers have been doing with homeowners: reassessing their risk after back-to-back costly hurricane seasons in 2004-05. During their special January session on insurance, state lawmakers ordered Citizens to expand its presence in the commercial-property market beyond the coasts.

The insurer is also absorbing a previous state effort to provide premium relief for commercial-property owners: the Florida Property Casualty Joint Underwriting Association. That entity, known as "the JUA," had a $1 million cap on its policies and, to qualify for coverage, a property owner had to have been rejected by three private insurers and one "surplus lines" company: an unregulated operator not subject to state rate controls.

Citizens will initially offer windstorm coverage up to $1 million on structures valued up to $10 million on a single policy. But starting Sept. 1, it plans to boost its damage limit to $2.5 million on structures valued up to $20 million. Those limits clearly target small landlords.

Citizens' statewide offerings starting Sept. 1 will also include not just wind damage but other perils such as fire, theft and business interruptions. Citizens has opened a commercial-insurance office in Tampa. International Catastrophic Insurance Managers of Boulder, Colo., has been hired to issue policies and handle claims initially, but Citizens will eventually assume those functions.