New Home Insurance Company Launches in Florida, Shows Signs of Improvement
According to Office of Insurance Regulation and leaders in the industry, Florida may finally be emerging from the insurance crisis that it has suffered through for the last decade. Insurance companies operating in the state are starting to stabilize rates and new insurance companies are entering the Florida market.
Recently, the Office of Insurance Regulation approved Patriot Select Property and Casualty Insurance which is the 13th new insurer to start writing coverage in the state.
In a recent ABC Action News report, John Rollins, the CEO of Patriot Select said they were excited to be getting into Florida market. “It feels relieving, because we’ve been raising capital trying to get into the Florida homeowners insurance market for about a year and a half now,” he said.
The company is raising roughly $30 million in capital to ensure state insurance regulators that they have the funds to operate in the state. Rollins talked of the challenges finding investors, as they start writing policies right before the 2025 hurricane season.
“These investors have picked up the paper and read the headlines about Florida was a mess. There was too much litigation in the claims environment. Had a lot of hurricanes hitting at the same time. Insurance companies, some of them, were not doing well, and we even had some insolvencies,” Rollins said in the ABC News interview “But again, once the 2024 season started to wind down, and people saw that, wow, these legislative reforms have really worked.”
ABC Action News aske Rollins why now was a good time to get into the Florida insurance market.
“Number one, the legislature kind of finally did the right thing in restoring Florida’s claims litigation environment to sort of like what it is in the 49 other states. The stabilization of the reinsurance market is probably point two,” Rollins said in the ABC interview. “I think point three is, you know, again, Florida is at the end of it all is a fast-growing addressable homeowners insurance market. And investors are always chasing growth markets, whether that’s in tech or something as stodgy as homeowners insurance. So did you put those three things together and investors thought it was the right time.”
Florida has been trying to move homeowners out of their insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance since it become the largest insurer in the state. Citizens has started moving policyholders to other insurers and Patriot Select will use the Citizens take-out process to build their policyholder base.
“Florida does offer kind of a unique way to scale up an insurance business, or jump start an insurance business, by going to Citizens and saying, I would like to take a block of policies out,” Rollins added in the ABC interview. “So, we’re hoping to scale our business with about 24,000 customers from Citizens in June and then work from there. Our long-term business plan is definitely to be an open market writer.”
“We have a small staff, but they’re very, very dedicated, and we’ve got some partners that are working with us that, you know, we’re leveraging their capabilities as well to try and get those agents on board. The money’s in place, the reinsurance will be in place by June 1, the customer service will be there, and they will be able to rely on us this hurricane season,” Rollins said in the ABC Action News interview.
INSURANCE COMMISSIONER’S RESPONSE
The Office of Insurance Regulation Press Secretary Shiloh Elliott recently released a statement regarding Patriot Select entering the Florida market:
“OIR’s approval of Patriot Select reentering the market shows continued progress toward stabilization for Florida’s insurance market, our team worked diligently for more than five years to supervise the successful, solvent runoff, which reflects the company, as well as OIR’s commitment to a responsible fulfillment of obligations to policyholders. New capital and successful oversight of legacy companies are allowing us to offer more reliable options for consumers statewide.”
In addition to Patriot Select, twelve additional companies have entered Florida’s market since the passage of legislative reforms.
- Apex Star Reciprocal Exchange
- Mangrove Property Insurance Company
- ASI Select Insurance Corp.
- Trident Reciprocal Exchange
- Ovation Home Insurance Exchange
- Manatee Insurance Exchange
- Condo Owners Reciprocal Exchange
- Orange Insurance Exchange
- Orion180 Select Insurance Company
- Orion180 Insurance Company
- Mainsail Insurance Company
- Tailrow Insurance Exchange