Sun Sentinel
by Julie Patel
March 18, 2011
Lawmakers are considering bills this year to beef up the state’s property insurance market and make it more attractive to insurers.
The bills include SB 408, SB 1330 and SB 1714.
Large national insurers dropped hundreds of thousands of policies in Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes. Four smaller home insurers folded in 2009 and early 2010 and others have asked to leave the state or drop policies.
Here’s a list from the Office of Insurance Regulation of companies that asked to scale back from Florida in 2010:
American Home Assurance Co. received approval from regulators to drop all of its 16,388 homeowners policies.
Cotton States Mutual Insurance Co. received approval to drop all of its roughly 27,000 homeowners policies, mostly in Northern Florida.
Mercury General Corp. and subsidiaries American Mercury and Mercury Insurance Co. of Florida asked to drop all of their 8,651 homeowners policies because of losses due to sinkhole claims. The company received approval last year to raise statewide rates by an average 25 percent.
Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico wants to drop all of its roughly 6,000 homeowners policies.
Royal Palm Insurance Co. has asked to drop 12,500 of its roughly 105,000 residential insurance policies. It received approval last year for a 15 percent statewide average rate hike.
Foremost Insurance Co. wants to drop 2,859 mobile home policies. The company, which has roughly 49,000 policies, received approval to raise rates by a statewide average of 10 percent last year.
Some policyholders with First Home Insurance will be also dropped but we have not heard back yet from OIR or the company the number.
