Types of Property Insurance | Olson Insurance Glendale

The state’s property insurer of last resort is still the largest in the Sunshine State, according to a third-quarter report issued recently, but the market’s movement in the past two months has a three-year-old company vaulting to fifth-largest.

The policyholder count of the largest insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corp., is closely watched because too much liability at the state-backed nonprofit that insures the state’s riskiest properties can cost all policyholders throughout the state.

The 2004-05 hurricane season resulted in a surcharge to all insurance premiums paid in the state because of the nonprofit’s depleted reserves. So the reduction of policyholders at Citizens — 21% fewer policies on the books since Sept. 30 — is a reason for optimism that the private market is taking on more of Citizens’ risk and thus the public’s, state officials say.


 

081404 PUNTA GORDA - Damage from Hurricane Charley in the Windmill mobile home community.
 

081304 -Cheryl Prather, of Fort Myers Beach, with her cat Lestat, watches as a home burns down located next to hers after Hurricane Charley passed through. Witnesses said they heard explosions inside but were unsure what caused the fire. [GARY CORONADO/palmbeachpost.com]
 

081304 -The surf from the Gulf of Mexico from the surge of Hurricane Charley crashes up against the bar outside the Diamond Head Resort on Fort Myers Beach Friday. This image is looking West onto the Gulf of Mexico. [GARY CORONADO/palmbeachpost.com]
 

Slide Insurance, founded in 2021 and the 12th largest in the state as of Sept. 30, 2023, took on more Citizens policies than any other company in October and November. The fledgling company has become the fifth-largest as of the end of November.

Office of Insurance Regulation Commissioner Michael Yaworsky credited changes to tort laws undertaken in 2022 with the improvements in the market.


“Nine new property and casualty insurers have entered Florida’s market since historic legislative reforms,” a news release from Yaworsky’s office said Friday, Dec. 20.

The biggest residential property insurers in the state, according to the latest report from Yaworsky’s office, with figures from Citizens’ takeouts since Sept. 30 factored in, are:

  1. Citizens with 1,256,791 policyholders on Sept. 30 and now at 982,892 as of Dec. 13. Policyholders hit an all-time high just a year ago, with 1.4 million policies counted on Sept. 30, 2023.
  2. State Farm Florida Insurance Co. with 642,609 policies, increasing its Florida presence by nearly 2% in the past year.

 

3. Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. with 560,227 policies, unchanged since last year.

4. Tower Hill Insurance Exchange with 374,986 policies in force, according to the most recent available data — a 10% increase from 2023.

5. Slide Insurance Co. with 339,089 policies, more than double its policy count since Sept. 30, 2023, when it was at 144,472 policies in force. The latest total includes nearly 66,000 policies added in October and November.

6. American Integrity Insurance Co. of Florida moved from the state’s 10th-largest property insurer in 2023 to sixth-largest as of the end of November. Now the company has 325,522 policies after adding more than 61,000 new policies from Citizens in October and November.

7. American Bankers Insurance Co. of Florida with 313,947 policies, a slight decrease from the previous year.

8. First Protective Insurance Co. with 248,081 policies, a miniscule dip from last year’s count.

9. Florida Peninsula Co. with 197,522 policies, which more than doubled the number counted on Sept. 30, 2023. The company jumped from the state’s 25th-largest company last year into this year’s Top 10, counting the addition of more than 50,000 policies in October and November that had been on Citizens’ rolls.

10. Castle Key Indemnity, with 195,123 policies in the latest report, which is a 24% drop from the number counted a year earlier.