Citizens, Florida’s insurer of last resort, has projected that it will be transferring around 76,000 policies to various private insurance companies this month.
That is according to Citizens CEO and president Tim Cerio, who shared the details to the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee last week.
Cerio also noted that approximately 338,000 policies will be transferred to private insurers over the course of the year.
Citizens currently holds a market share of around 18% and has been looking to shed policies amid threats of insolvency.
Last year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said “Citizens has not been solvent” and “would not have enough to pay out” if another major hurricane were to impact its policyholders. These warnings were later cited by the US Senate Budget Committee as it initiated an investigation into the insurer’s financial viability.
Citizens now holds 1.24 million policies, the News Service of Florida reported, down from 1.41 million in the fall of 2023.
As part of Citizens’ depopulation program, regulators have approved seven insurance companies to take on up to 200,000 policies from the insurer.
HCI Group are among the companies taking up these policies. In late 2023, HCI assumed some 59,800 policies from Citizens through its subsidiaries. It is slated to assume another set of policies this month.
“With this assumption of policies from Citizens, HCI reached a significant milestone of writing over $1 billion of in-force premium,” said Paresh Patel, HCI’s chairman and CEO. “This is a tremendous accomplishment as the company started 2023 with less than $740 million of in-force premium.”
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