View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2016/03/03/400671.htm

Florida Approves 81,500 Citizens Policies for May 2016 Take-Out

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) has approved the removal of up to 80,000 personal residential policies and 1,500 commercial residential polices from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens). The following three companies have been approved to participate:

• Anchor Property & Casualty Insurance Company – approved to remove up to 10,000 personal residential policies (8,164 Personal Lines Account and 1,836 Coastal Account)
• Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Company – 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)
• Southern Oak Insurance Company – approved to remove up to 15,000 personal residential policies (10,000 Personal Lines Account and 5,000 Coastal Account)

Citizen’s Personal Lines and Commercial Lines Accounts are primarily non-coastal properties and the Coastal Account consists of properties designated as coastal. The take-out periods are May 24, 2016 for personal residential impacting both the Personal Lines/Coastal Account policies and May 17, 2016 for commercial residential impacting both the Commercial Lines/Coastal Account policies.

These take-outs are part of the state’s ongoing depopulation effort to reduce the number of policies in 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 425,149 with the actual number of policies removed from Citizens as of January 19, 2016 at 19,424. Policyholders who receive a take-out offer may choose to remain covered by Citizens through the opt-out process.