HCI Group has assumed around 6,800 policies from Citizens, Florida’s insurer of last resort.
The policies amount to approximately $30 million of in-force premium and were taken on by the group’s majority-owned subsidiary, TypTap Insurance company.
Back in November, another HCI subsidiary assumed some 53,000 policies from Citizens, equal to roughly $196 million of in-force premium.
With the assumption of Citizens’ policies, HCI has been able to reach a new milestone of writing over $1 billion of in-force premium, according to Paresh Patel, chairman and CEO.
“This achievement is remarkable, considering the company’s starting point in 2023 with less than $740 million of in-force premium,” Patel said in a news release.
Typtap is slated to complete another set of policy assumptions in January. HCI initially received approval to assume policies from Citizens in October.
Despite being established as an insurer of last resort, Citizens holds around 1.3 million policies. Its expanding market share has become a major point of concern, with the US Senate Budget Committee recently launching an investigation to look into its financial viability.
Addressing Florida’s top officials, committee chair Sheldon Whitehouse asked for documents detailing how Citizens will “address increased underwriting losses from climate-related extreme weather events.”
“Florida is on the front line of the climate crisis, and it could take just one major hurricane to render Citizens insolvent,” Whitehouse said in a statement about the committee’s investigation.
Citizens has been able to shed policies through a few private insurers. Previously, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approved Slide Insurance to assume as many as 100,000 policies from the state-backed insurer.
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