FLORIDA’S CITIZENS TO OFFLOAD NEARLY 400,000 POLICIES

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has approved a plan for Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s last-resort property insurer, to transfer 393,732 policies to private carriers in the company’s biggest move yet to depopulate its book of business. The latest take-outs represent nearly a third of Citizens’ 1.2m policyholders. In the past decade, Citizens has grown into the state’s largest property insurer, a role that critics say does not suit a last-resort carrier. The companies that are to assume Citizens policies include United Property and Casualty Insurance, 100,000 policies; Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty Insurance, 50,374 (which was announced last week); Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance and Florida Peninsula Insurance, 50,000 each; Tower Hill Prime Insurance, 38,430; Tower Hill Preferred Insurance, 34,415; Southern Fidelity Property & Casualty, 30,000; Tower Hill Signature Insurance, 24,578; Southern Oak Insurance, 10,000; and Weston Insurance, 5,935. Targeted customers are to be notified of the take-outs later this month and they will have the option of remaining with Citizens. In the meantime, Heritage, which agreed earlier this year to assume another 60,000 Citizens policies and $52m in ceded premiums, has ended up assuming just under 40,000 of those policies and $33.1m in premiums, as a third of those customers opted out of the transfer.