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Citizens likely to avoid major impact from storm

Hurricane Sally, which caused heavy flooding and other damage Wednesday in Northwest Florida, likely will not have a major financial impact on the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp., officials said Thursday.

The insurer has about 3,500 policies that were within the hurricane’s wind field. Jay Adams, chief of claims for Citizens, said about 1,000 of the policies are for mobile homes, most of which are older and could have sustained “significant” damage.

“Our goal will be to get this adjusted as quickly as possible,” Adams said during a conference call of the Citizens Market Accountability Advisory Committee.

He also said Citizens has “a couple hundred” commercial policies in the affected areas.

“We don’t think it will be a huge exposure for us in this event,” Adams said. Hurricane Sally made landfall Wednesday morning near Gulf Shores, Ala., as a Category 2 storm, packing 105 mph maximum sustained winds. It dumped huge amounts of rain on Pensacola and other areas of Northwest Florida and caused major storm surges.