St. Pete insurance firm takes on 20,000 Citizen policies

Mangrove Property Insurance Co. has assumed about 20,000 Citizens Property Insurance Corp. policies, bringing its total haul from the state-run company to about 50,000 this year.

The assumption of the latest batch of policies was effective June 17.

The St. Petersburg company made the announcement Thursday and reiterated a previous statement that it would cap the number of policies it took in from Citizens to no more than 81,040 this year.

It assumed about 30,000 policies in April.

Stephen Weinstein, Mangrove’s founder and CEO, says in a statement that the company’s goal in taking the policies is to “focus on policies which meet our robust selection criteria and which we believe can be underwritten on an actuarially sound basis within 20% of Citizens rates.”

“We believe our targeted underwriting and our vision of providing a stable source of renewal capacity in partnership with the incumbent agents drove our 84% acceptance rate.”

Citizens, created to be the state’s insurer of last resort, has seen the number of policies it has in force drop in the past year in part because of the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s take-out program.

This program allows for companies that meet Florida's statutory requirements to assume Citizens policies. According to the regulator’s website, to qualify to assume policies an insurer must meet OIR standards and have the financial resources and business plan in place to pay claims.

The take-out program coupled with other legislative reforms has helped cut down the number of policies Citizens has in force and the claims it is responsible for.

As of May 31, Citizens had 819,027 policies in force. That’s down 31.3% from 1.19 million policies May 31, 2024, and down 37.2% from 1.3 million policies April 30, 2023.

(OIR encourages policyholders to talk to their agents, contact the take-out company or visit its website if they have questions.)