As Surprised said, didn’t hear a word. As an agent, we got a heads up about the middle of last week and the “death notice” on Friday. There isn’t anything an agent can do about, there just aren’t other markets to absorb the policies. This new entity, “Slide” has been in business about 11 days and they are going to take on the entirety of St. John’s 160,000 unprofitable and loss ridden policies.
We agents work hard to find out who might be next, who is having issues and potentially will be problems. However, we do not have many sources of information on these Florida HO carriers as they are almost exclusively privately held. That leaves us to believe that there are several other FL HO companies that won’t make it to the end of 2022. But what can we do? We don’t have the info available to help guide our customers.
Full year 2021 Financial statements are statutorily required to be released on 3/15. I highly encourage you and your Agency to review these to help gauge which FL HO carriers are likely to survive or not. Of course, you all probably want to consider these latest numbers alongside other intel you have as well as previous years’ financial statements.
These are great suggestions. However, most FL HO companies have 110+% combined ratios for the last 2-4 years. And they continue to operate. And, they are literally the “only game in town” which gives us very little to work with. There are and were other companies that have been reporting the same or worse numbers than St. Johns so there is clearly more to their survival than just the combined ratio.
I recommend you study other metrics such as Surplus to Premium written, quarterly changes to reserves, ownership structure, capital contributions, product mix, etc etc alongside combined ratios. The devil’s in the details.
For the life of me, I have never figured out how any insurer can do property business in Florida. Cannot charge enough even when the annual claims are “average.” and then a major storm and they are all under water. But there will be more carriers jumping in soon to last only a few years and it starts again.
I cancelled my policy approx. mid jan, the policy was paid for by my mortgage lender aprox. mid November, Iam due back aprox. $2,000. that State regulations say they have to pay in 20 days, I now find out that St johns in in bankruptcy, when do I get my $
I am in the same boat as you. I cancelled my policy with them on Feb 9 and the check was cut to me on Feb 24th. However before it could be mailed out, the State for FL told them not send it out. I was then told I would receive it from the State in 30 – 60 days from the Febraury 24th date. Here I am still waiting.
I had a terrible experience with St. Johns. Not surprised they went bankrupt. Had a water leak in July 2016 that impacted about half of my house. Their initial offer was less than $15k. Then I received a letter saying they weren’t sure my floor would be covered under the policy. Had to hire a public adjuster and eventually an attorney. Eventually settled for over $250k. However, I didn’t come out whole due to fees to public adjuster and attorneys.
Of course they dropped me at my next renewal, so at least I am not waiting for a refund.
Never heard a word about this from my agent. That’s disconcerting.
Your agent wasn’t officially notified by DFS until this afternoon.
As Surprised said, didn’t hear a word. As an agent, we got a heads up about the middle of last week and the “death notice” on Friday. There isn’t anything an agent can do about, there just aren’t other markets to absorb the policies. This new entity, “Slide” has been in business about 11 days and they are going to take on the entirety of St. John’s 160,000 unprofitable and loss ridden policies.
We agents work hard to find out who might be next, who is having issues and potentially will be problems. However, we do not have many sources of information on these Florida HO carriers as they are almost exclusively privately held. That leaves us to believe that there are several other FL HO companies that won’t make it to the end of 2022. But what can we do? We don’t have the info available to help guide our customers.
Full year 2021 Financial statements are statutorily required to be released on 3/15. I highly encourage you and your Agency to review these to help gauge which FL HO carriers are likely to survive or not. Of course, you all probably want to consider these latest numbers alongside other intel you have as well as previous years’ financial statements.
I’d say be wary of any company with a sizable net loss but that is probably the whole industry.
These are great suggestions. However, most FL HO companies have 110+% combined ratios for the last 2-4 years. And they continue to operate. And, they are literally the “only game in town” which gives us very little to work with. There are and were other companies that have been reporting the same or worse numbers than St. Johns so there is clearly more to their survival than just the combined ratio.
I recommend you study other metrics such as Surplus to Premium written, quarterly changes to reserves, ownership structure, capital contributions, product mix, etc etc alongside combined ratios. The devil’s in the details.
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The article didn’t state that anyone from St. Johns committed fraud. Al, do you know something about fraud taking place? q
For the life of me, I have never figured out how any insurer can do property business in Florida. Cannot charge enough even when the annual claims are “average.” and then a major storm and they are all under water. But there will be more carriers jumping in soon to last only a few years and it starts again.
…and this is why I don’t give any credence to Demotech
I cancelled my policy approx. mid jan, the policy was paid for by my mortgage lender aprox. mid November, Iam due back aprox. $2,000. that State regulations say they have to pay in 20 days, I now find out that St johns in in bankruptcy, when do I get my $
I am in the same boat as you. I cancelled my policy with them on Feb 9 and the check was cut to me on Feb 24th. However before it could be mailed out, the State for FL told them not send it out. I was then told I would receive it from the State in 30 – 60 days from the Febraury 24th date. Here I am still waiting.
I had a terrible experience with St. Johns. Not surprised they went bankrupt. Had a water leak in July 2016 that impacted about half of my house. Their initial offer was less than $15k. Then I received a letter saying they weren’t sure my floor would be covered under the policy. Had to hire a public adjuster and eventually an attorney. Eventually settled for over $250k. However, I didn’t come out whole due to fees to public adjuster and attorneys.
Of course they dropped me at my next renewal, so at least I am not waiting for a refund.