Really, should we be shocked? HCI has done nothing for the agents to make themselves easy to do business with. Seriously – send an Acord to them and they will give us a quote? How on earth are they going to be able to manage those policies without the technology to support it? Either they have plans to be a People’s Trust clone, or they are hiding much more from the agents than this article suggests.
Those provisions in the contract are certainly concerning but I doubt that HCI has the resources to manage a large client base, in house. I wonder if they can weather the acquisition of this book of business.
Every minute of Mr. Grady’s work day should be dedicated to convincing lawmakers to do everything they can to get national carriers back to the state. Get away from the rinky dink companies and back to the independent agency company powerhouses. At this point, given the hell the state has put them through, it would take a massive dose of deregulation. But, the big guys work with the Big I all around the country and know they need to respect the ownership of renewals to keep those relationships.
The majors aren’t overly friendly to the independent agent either. I have a small handful of Florida based carriers that I feel do a great job of managing exposure and treat their agents right. I’d be just as happy if that were a large handful.
As a CSR, I really like working with Homeowner’s Choice. Their customer service is great, and their turnaround time for endorsements is lightning fast…usually one day!
especially when I hear that they don’t have any way of telling what customers on payment plans owe. apparently, they’re trying to figure it out by hand. that’s what one of their employees told me the other day. Yikes.
Thankfully, most our HomeWise book was already gone. Mostly condos left. They’re welcome to it for 1.5 X commission.
With the “lightning fast” one day turnaround time, 10 other agencies have already quoted the business and one of them has written it. In the day of upload/download and real-time processing, that’s like going back to the stone age.
Agreed that 70,000 policies is a HUGE assumption. Even with the necessary automation, this is a tremendous task.
Finally…I’ve been involved off an on for years with FAIA. I can assure you that Mr. Grady and his competent staff spend almost every waking hour diligently lobbying and advocating on behalf of FL agents and the insdustry we serve. We, as insurance agents, have a responsibility to do our share to lobby our state representatives and senators to make the necessary changes that will get our state back in proper shape. It takes ALL of us working together, not just a handfull of people at the association leve.
I am concerned that the author of this article has not done their due diligence and actually seen and reviewed this contract. It seems they are taking an anecdotal account of Mr. Grady’s interpretation of this contract. For one, the article states “after 180 days of a policy nonrenewal or after the second renewal of a policy to terminate an agent’s exclusive ownership of the policy. Such a move could potentially allow the insurer to end the agent’s appointment and directly market to the homeowner”, this is not what the contract states. It states that Homeowners Choice and the agent agree after 180 days of a policy non-renewal or after the second renewal of the policy they have non-exclusive, mutual ownership of the policy holder information . The second concern is a valid one and every agent should think long and hard whether or not they want the value of a book dictated to them by a carrier. I spoke to the company and they had not issues with me striking the above sections of the contract from it. Also the OIR ( whom I am not a fan of) orchestrated this assumption to benefit both the agent and their customers to prevent a repeat of the Northern Capital and Magnolia cancellations that took place last year causing many agents (including yours truly) and their customers considerable pain and angst.
I have a HCI take out book of business and am able to service my customers just fine, and have found their customer service to meet or exceed the service that my existing voluntary and take companies (present or past) have provided. They do have technology, however not all of the pieces are in place for some of the things that even my better carriers can’t do like real-time endorsements. I would agree their lack of binding authority and online rating and acceptance is “stone age” at best, this is why I will not use them for new business until this process improves.
My understanding from speaking to my marketing rep, is that HCI could not reach an acceptable agreement with the Homewise vendor Blue Cod and had to create a backroom for their policies to be serviced in less than 60 days’ time , so billing and premium bearing changes are not functioning for the assumption business currently but are expected soon.
The simple truth is that the big companied have abandoned this market and more than likely not returning until the Florida legislature gets out of insurance market and allows the free market to function as it should. Are these policies better off in Citizens like the Poe policies ended up? I don’t think so. Are other carriers hungry to eat this business up and do book rolls? I have reached out to all of my carriers and haven’t got a single call back. No, I am not located in South Florida. HCI assumed this book of business to take an advantage of a business opportunity and it no different than when a competitor of mine comes to me, to offer me their book of business. The real issue here is, we need people to bring capital back the market to risk and be able to get a return on that investment, and that is no different than any of us who have started agencies want. The FAIA should be working on Citizens reform, sinkhole coverage abolished and less interference from the State to get companies profitable so they can stay in business. Bottom line is if you don’t want do business with a carrier you shouldn’t.
You haven’t tried very hard. When I had a carrier doing bad things to customers I had several step up to take over those policies. Nothing can excuse this contract.
The question is: if none of your other carriers wanted any part of your HomeWise book, why does HCI?
As I said in an earlier article on this topic, this book of business has already killed HomeWise Preferred, HomeWise Insurance Company, and First Home. Now HCI is taking it on AND more than doubling their policy count virtually overnight? And, as an added bonus, they don’t have the systems in place to efficiently manage the takeover.
That does not sound like a recipe for success to me. I hope I’m wrong, but I think HCI made a big mistake here.
Wow, the article states that HCI will work “with” agents. It seems more like take from the independent agent. No matter how you interpret it, the verbiage is there. This type of policy can really create a Monopoly and it is extremely concerning to me. Where is Jeff Atwater on this contract?
Jay Maudha says “all agents have to do is call us”. So they could have thousands of non-concurrent contracts with different agencies at the end of it all. The problem is, these guys have no insurance experience.
HCI is a shameful company who systematically denies claims.
I went to mediation with them in good fait and their representetive refused to say anything besides his name.
I filed a small claims suit against them and won by default, as they were a no-show in court.
Beware of this company. Don’t sell their policies to your clients, or if your a consumer; refuse to be insured by them. NewsAction 8 also did a story on HCI denying claims.
I know Hub International has taken over Smith Watson Parker why aren’t they ( hub) writing policy for Homeowners choice? Did you get rid of them or did they you?
Really, should we be shocked? HCI has done nothing for the agents to make themselves easy to do business with. Seriously – send an Acord to them and they will give us a quote? How on earth are they going to be able to manage those policies without the technology to support it? Either they have plans to be a People’s Trust clone, or they are hiding much more from the agents than this article suggests.
Those provisions in the contract are certainly concerning but I doubt that HCI has the resources to manage a large client base, in house. I wonder if they can weather the acquisition of this book of business.
Every minute of Mr. Grady’s work day should be dedicated to convincing lawmakers to do everything they can to get national carriers back to the state. Get away from the rinky dink companies and back to the independent agency company powerhouses. At this point, given the hell the state has put them through, it would take a massive dose of deregulation. But, the big guys work with the Big I all around the country and know they need to respect the ownership of renewals to keep those relationships.
The majors aren’t overly friendly to the independent agent either. I have a small handful of Florida based carriers that I feel do a great job of managing exposure and treat their agents right. I’d be just as happy if that were a large handful.
As a CSR, I really like working with Homeowner’s Choice. Their customer service is great, and their turnaround time for endorsements is lightning fast…usually one day!
As a CSR you should be VERY concerned about ANY company that assumes 70,000 policies.
especially when I hear that they don’t have any way of telling what customers on payment plans owe. apparently, they’re trying to figure it out by hand. that’s what one of their employees told me the other day. Yikes.
Thankfully, most our HomeWise book was already gone. Mostly condos left. They’re welcome to it for 1.5 X commission.
As a CSR, you could only hope that they had a web portal that would allow you to process changes real-time.
I agree Mr. Solvent, we have seen what happens to those companies that try and take on too much too fast.
With the “lightning fast” one day turnaround time, 10 other agencies have already quoted the business and one of them has written it. In the day of upload/download and real-time processing, that’s like going back to the stone age.
Agreed that 70,000 policies is a HUGE assumption. Even with the necessary automation, this is a tremendous task.
Finally…I’ve been involved off an on for years with FAIA. I can assure you that Mr. Grady and his competent staff spend almost every waking hour diligently lobbying and advocating on behalf of FL agents and the insdustry we serve. We, as insurance agents, have a responsibility to do our share to lobby our state representatives and senators to make the necessary changes that will get our state back in proper shape. It takes ALL of us working together, not just a handfull of people at the association leve.
I am concerned that the author of this article has not done their due diligence and actually seen and reviewed this contract. It seems they are taking an anecdotal account of Mr. Grady’s interpretation of this contract. For one, the article states “after 180 days of a policy nonrenewal or after the second renewal of a policy to terminate an agent’s exclusive ownership of the policy. Such a move could potentially allow the insurer to end the agent’s appointment and directly market to the homeowner”, this is not what the contract states. It states that Homeowners Choice and the agent agree after 180 days of a policy non-renewal or after the second renewal of the policy they have non-exclusive, mutual ownership of the policy holder information . The second concern is a valid one and every agent should think long and hard whether or not they want the value of a book dictated to them by a carrier. I spoke to the company and they had not issues with me striking the above sections of the contract from it. Also the OIR ( whom I am not a fan of) orchestrated this assumption to benefit both the agent and their customers to prevent a repeat of the Northern Capital and Magnolia cancellations that took place last year causing many agents (including yours truly) and their customers considerable pain and angst.
I have a HCI take out book of business and am able to service my customers just fine, and have found their customer service to meet or exceed the service that my existing voluntary and take companies (present or past) have provided. They do have technology, however not all of the pieces are in place for some of the things that even my better carriers can’t do like real-time endorsements. I would agree their lack of binding authority and online rating and acceptance is “stone age” at best, this is why I will not use them for new business until this process improves.
My understanding from speaking to my marketing rep, is that HCI could not reach an acceptable agreement with the Homewise vendor Blue Cod and had to create a backroom for their policies to be serviced in less than 60 days’ time , so billing and premium bearing changes are not functioning for the assumption business currently but are expected soon.
The simple truth is that the big companied have abandoned this market and more than likely not returning until the Florida legislature gets out of insurance market and allows the free market to function as it should. Are these policies better off in Citizens like the Poe policies ended up? I don’t think so. Are other carriers hungry to eat this business up and do book rolls? I have reached out to all of my carriers and haven’t got a single call back. No, I am not located in South Florida. HCI assumed this book of business to take an advantage of a business opportunity and it no different than when a competitor of mine comes to me, to offer me their book of business. The real issue here is, we need people to bring capital back the market to risk and be able to get a return on that investment, and that is no different than any of us who have started agencies want. The FAIA should be working on Citizens reform, sinkhole coverage abolished and less interference from the State to get companies profitable so they can stay in business. Bottom line is if you don’t want do business with a carrier you shouldn’t.
You haven’t tried very hard. When I had a carrier doing bad things to customers I had several step up to take over those policies. Nothing can excuse this contract.
The question is: if none of your other carriers wanted any part of your HomeWise book, why does HCI?
As I said in an earlier article on this topic, this book of business has already killed HomeWise Preferred, HomeWise Insurance Company, and First Home. Now HCI is taking it on AND more than doubling their policy count virtually overnight? And, as an added bonus, they don’t have the systems in place to efficiently manage the takeover.
That does not sound like a recipe for success to me. I hope I’m wrong, but I think HCI made a big mistake here.
Wow, the article states that HCI will work “with” agents. It seems more like take from the independent agent. No matter how you interpret it, the verbiage is there. This type of policy can really create a Monopoly and it is extremely concerning to me. Where is Jeff Atwater on this contract?
Jay Maudha says “all agents have to do is call us”. So they could have thousands of non-concurrent contracts with different agencies at the end of it all. The problem is, these guys have no insurance experience.
It sounds like good old fashioned greed to me
HCI is a shameful company who systematically denies claims.
I went to mediation with them in good fait and their representetive refused to say anything besides his name.
I filed a small claims suit against them and won by default, as they were a no-show in court.
Beware of this company. Don’t sell their policies to your clients, or if your a consumer; refuse to be insured by them. NewsAction 8 also did a story on HCI denying claims.
I know hub took over swap what I would like to know is did hub drop you or did you drop hub?
I know Hub International has taken over Smith Watson Parker why aren’t they ( hub) writing policy for Homeowners choice? Did you get rid of them or did they you?