New companies to begin
writing homeowners insurance policies in Florida
Several companies are joining Florida's insurance marketplace as
the state's insurer of last resort looks to shed more than
300,000 policies. |
Article Courtesy of Channel 25 News WPBF
By Taylor Hernandez
Published
January 28, 2024
|
|
PALM BEACH GARDENS - Several
companies are joining Florida's insurance marketplace as the state's
insurer of last resort looks to shed more than 300,000 policies.
At the end of 2023, Citizens Property
Insurance was responsible for 1.2 million policies; down
from a record high of more than 1.4 million earlier in the
year.
The state-backed insurer is in the process of a
"depopulation" program to shift policies to private
companies.
Recently, several new companies started taking policies away
from Citizens.
"Most of these are take-out companies from Citizens;
established for the purpose of having someone else service
the policy because Citizens just has way too many."
|
|
|
These so-called "take-out" companies get the first
year's premium from Citizens when it takes over a policy.
Now some of these companies, like Slide Insurance, will write policies
outside of Citizens.
If the offer is within 20% of what you were paying at Citizens, you will
be dropped from the insurer of last resort.
"Citizens says if you have a premium and it is 15% more than us, you
can’t come with us," said Greg Buck, the owner of a local insurance
brokerage said.
These are some of the newer companies to the market: Florida Peninsula,
Southern Oak, American Traditions Insurance, People's Trust, Condo
Owners Reciprocal Exchange, Security First, Edison Insurance.
"Not much of a track record on a lot of those carriers because some of
them were created brand new, but we’ve also seen the fact that it will
hopefully stabilize the rates as these companies try to become
competitive," Buck said.
Citizens projects about 338,000 policies will move to private insurers
this year.
|