A Senate panel Tuesday approved a proposal aimed at stemming the growth of the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and shifting more policies into the private market.

The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee backed the bill (SB 186), sponsored by Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg.

Lawmakers are looking at Citizens issues after the insurer ended 2021 with 759,305 policies, an increase of nearly 217,000 policies from a year earlier.

The bill would take a series of steps to try to curb the growth, including addressing situations in which Citizens customers receive coverage offers from private insurers.

Under the bill, such customers would not be eligible for renewal with Citizens unless the private insurers’ premiums are more than 20 percent higher than what Citizens would charge.

As another example of the proposed changes, the bill would allow what are known as surplus-lines insurers to take part in programs aimed at removing policies from Citizens.

Generally, surplus-lines insurers are more lightly regulated than standard insurers. State leaders have long sought to minimize the number of policies in Citizens, which was created as an insurer of last resort.

But the policy count has soared as private insurers have shed customers and sought hefty rate increases amid financial troubles in the industry.