Anticipating Hurricane Season, Florida Insurer Cancels Policyholders

By | April 7, 2014

A Florida insurer has decided to lessen its exposure in south Florida, cancelling thousands of policyholders in anticipation of the June 1 opening of hurricane season.

People’s Trust Insurance Co. reported that it is cancelling about five percent of its 115,000 homeowners policies with most of those policies being cancelled located in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties.

People’s Trust Director of Marketing Genie O’Loughlin told reporters that given its growth in those areas, the insurer needed to reconsider its exposure.

“People’s Trust has experienced very strong growth in the tri-county area in the last year, with even faster growth occurring over the past quarter,” said O’Loughlin. “As a result, People’s Trust is implementing prudent exposure management strategies to more effectively diversify and balance the company’s risk portfolio as we enter the 2014 hurricane season.”

The insurer added more than 40,000 new policyholders in 2013 and increased its direct written premiums by 230 percent to $208 million.

The insurer also is scheduled to start participating in the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. clearinghouse starting in May.

By law, insurers must provide homeowners with a 90-day cancellation notice. That means the affected homeowners will have three months to find coverage before the opening of hurricane season.

Award Winner

The decision comes just a few months after the insurer was recognized for its economic contribution to the state.

In January, Governor Rick Scott and Enterprise Florida President Gray Swoop announced that People’s Trust was a 2013 winner of Enterprise Florida Governor’s Innovators in Business for Innovation and Entrepreneurship award.

The award is specifically for Florida start-up companies that in the past three years have found ways to contribute to the state’s economy, especially in difficult industries like insurance. Along with adding thousands of new policyholders, the insurer expanded its workforce from 162 employees to more than 425 statewide.

Topics Florida Catastrophe Carriers Natural Disasters Hurricane

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