Florida Approves Removal of Up to 75,115 Policies from Citizens

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has approved the removal of up to 72,534 personal residential policies and 2,581 commercial residential polices from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The following three companies have been approved to participate:

• Avatar Property & Casualty Insurance Co. – approved to remove up to 1,081 commercial residential policies (Commercial Lines Account)
• Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co. – approved to remove up to 55,000 personal residential policies (35,000 Personal Lines Account and 20,000 Coastal Account) and up to 1,500 commercial residential policies (1,300 Commercial Lines Account and 200 Coastal Account)
• National Specialty Insurance Co. – approved to remove up to 17,534 personal residential policies (Coastal Account)

Citizen’s Personal Lines and Commercial Lines Accounts are primarily non-coastal properties and the Coastal Account is coastal properties. The take-out periods are February 23, 2016 for personal residential impacting both the Personal Lines/Coastal Account policies and February 16, 2016 for commercial residential impacting both the Commercial Lines/Coastal Account policies. This is part of the state’s ongoing depopulation effort to reduce the number of policies in the state-created Citizens and transfer them to the private insurance market.

This announcement brings the total number of potential policies approved for take-outs in 2016 to 205,649. In 2015, the total number of potential policies approved for take-outs was 1,321,193 and the actual number of policies removed from Citizens as of October 28, 2015 was 221,622. Policyholders who receive a take-out offer may choose to remain covered by Citizens through the opt-out process.

OIR has primary responsibility for regulation, compliance and enforcement of statutes related to the business of insurance and the monitoring of industry markets. ​

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation

Topics Florida Legislation