Slide backed to pick up 100,000 Florida Citizens policies

Slide backed to pick up 100,000 Florida Citizens policies | Insurance Business America

Environmental

Slide backed to pick up 100,000 Florida Citizens policies

Move ‘demonstrates faith and belief in the Florida market’ – CEO

Environmental

By
Gia Snape and Jen Frost

Slide Insurance has been approved to pick up as many as 100,000 policies from Florida’s insurer of last resort Citizens as it looks to grow its book, Insurance Business can reveal.

“We view this as a big opportunity to grow our footprint in Florida,” Slide CEO Bruce Lucas told Insurance Business.

“We’ve got about 175,000 policies now, so if we were able to get the full 100,000 – which I don’t think will happen – this is a pretty meaningful growth for the company, and it really demonstrates our faith and belief in the Florida market.”

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR) approval process took around three months, Lucas said, with Slide having done a “deep dive” to track down policies that could be a good strategic fit for the insurer.

Prospective policyholders are given the option to accept or decline an offer to switch carrier from Citizens, and it is not guaranteed that Slide will take on 100,000 policies in total.

Citizens currently has more than 1.3 million policies in force, and a market share of around 18%. A rash of Florida-domiciled insurance company insolvencies amid a property insurance crisis have seen policies in force balloon at the state insurer.

Last month, Farmers’ exit from its exclusive agent business in the state, which affected around 100,000 policyholders, triggered further fears that Citizens’ policyholder numbers could continue to swell to potentially record breaking levels.

“We do think that the market is at a turning point,” Lucas said. “The legislation from December, we think is working, we think that the future is very bright as a result of that. It’s given me the confidence to grow and expand in Florida.”