Heritage takes more policies from Citizens

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (office) has approved the removal of a further 15,000 multi-peril personal residential policies from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Company.

The regulator said the move is part of the state’s ongoing effort to reduce the number of policies in state-backed Citizens and transfer them into the private insurance market.

Heritage has requested to remove 13,178 policies from Citizen’s personal lines account (non-coastal properties) and 1,822 from the coastal account (coastal properties) for the August 19, 2014 take-out period.

The announcement brings the total number of policies approved for take-outs this year to 359,341. Polices approved for removal by the office are not all necessarily eliminated from Citizens inventory. The policyholder has the choice to remain with Citizens. Policyholders choosing to be transferred have a lower risk of being charged higher amounts for Citizens assessments. To date, 106,380 policies have been removed from Citizens.

Established in 2012, Heritage provides residential insurance for home and condominium owners throughout Florida. At the end of 2013, it had approximately 128,000 policies in force. About 93 percent of these were assumed from Citizens.

Heritage recently raised $66 million from an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.