Florida Insurers to Take Policies from Citizens Property
Starting in October, private insurance companies may start pulling customers from the state backed, insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. According to a recent report, Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky has approved private insurers to take up to 184,000 policies from Citizens Property.
Yaworsky signed orders that will approve proposals by a variety of insurers to take policies from Citizens Property. The proposals being approved allow Slide Insurance Co., Safepoint Insurance Co., Southern Oak Insurance Co., Florida Peninsula Insurance Co. and Monarch National Insurance Co. to move Citizens policies to their portfolio.
While the number of policies being moved varies by insurer, Slide Insurance Co. have been approved to receive the most policies, up to 100,000 Citizens policies. The approved insurers could start moving policies from Citizens as early as October 17. The other insurers have been approved for:
- Safepoint as many as 30,000 policies
- Southern Oak – 5,000 policies
- Florida Peninsula – 19,000 policies
- Monarch – 10,000 policies
In recent years Citizens has become the largest property insurer in the state as more and more private insurance companies have gone under or pulled out of the state altogether. As of this month, Citizens has 1.34 million policies, compared to 486,773 at the end of July 2020.
Florida homeowners insurance premiums have been sky-high for years now as less than honest roofing companies have filed thousands of fraudulent lawsuits against insurers which has led to the most expensive homeowner insurance premiums in the country.
Florida lawmakers finally managed to address some of the issues via new legislation last year. Since the new laws have gone into effect, some private insurers have expressed interest in taking some policies from Citizens.
In June, Monarch assumed 17,239 policies and now Slide Insurance and Loggerhead Reciprocal Interinsurance Exchange have received approval to take as many as 26,000 policies in August, said Carl Rockman, a Citizens vice president, during a meeting last month.
According to the report, private insurance companies will be able to cherry pick the policies they would like to take onboard. While Citizens is often the cheapest insurer in the state, the legislation passed in December requires Citizen’s customers to accept offers of coverage from private insurers if the offers are within 20% of the cost of Citizens premiums.
For the best rates and Florida home insurance coverage, call us at 888-685-4704 or get your online Florida home insurance quotes today!