TALLAHASSEE,
Fla. – The Florida Office
of Insurance Regulation (Office) has approved the removal of up to 72,534
personal residential policies and 2,581 commercial residential polices from
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens). The following three
companies have been approved to participate:
· Avatar
Property & Casualty Insurance Company – approved to remove up to 1,081
commercial residential policies (Commercial Lines 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)
· National
Specialty Insurance Company – 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.
Today’s
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.
For more
information, please visit the Office’s “Take-Out Companies” webpage at: http://www.floir.com/Sections/PandC/TakeoutCompanies.aspx.