TALLAHASSEE — United Property & Casualty Insurance Co. will leave Florida’s troubled homeowners’ insurance market, forcing customers to find new coverage as their policies come up for renewal, the insurer’s parent company announced Thursday.
St. Petersburg-based United Insurance Holdings Corp. said it has filed plans to withdraw from markets in Florida, Texas and Louisiana.
A news release from the parent company said the plans would “effectively place United P&C into an orderly run-off,” which means policies will be gradually dropped as they come up for renewal. The announcement pointed, in part, to problems in obtaining reinsurance, which is critical backup coverage to help handle such things as hurricane claims.
“Due to significant uncertainty around the future availability of reinsurance for our personal lines business, I believe placing United P&C into an orderly run-off is prudent and necessary to protect the company and its policyholders,” United Insurance Holdings Chairman and CEO Dan Peed said in a prepared statement.
The parent company said in July that it had started a “review of its strategic and capital raising alternatives” amid financial losses. The Demotech financial-rating agency later downgraded United Property & Casualty from an “A Exceptional” rating to a “M Moderate” rating.
The news release Thursday said Demotech has notified United Property & Casualty that it will withdraw the insurer’s rating. Rating withdrawals have been precursors to some insurers being declared insolvent and placed into receivership.
Thursday’s announcement did not say how many customers in Florida and the other states would be affected. But a United Insurance Holdings investor presentation in May cited about 185,000 Florida policies as of March 31.
United Property & Casualty is the latest insurer to leave the Florida market or dramatically scale back coverage amid losses. As indications of the troubles, five property insurers have been deemed insolvent since February, and the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has ballooned to more than 1 million policies as many homeowners have few other coverage alternatives.
During a state Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier acknowledged Florida is dealing with a “very challenging market.” But he said the state has taken a “significant number of positive steps in addressing this crisis” with legislation passed in recent years and during a May special session.
“As we have said numerous times before, there is no overnight fix to this insurance crisis. It’s been years in the making, unfortunately,” Altmaier told Cabinet members and Gov. Ron DeSantis. “But the steps we have taken so far under your leadership are going to be significant steps forward into addressing this issue.”
In addition to difficulties obtaining reinsurance, property insurers have blamed large numbers of lawsuits in Florida for financial problems. Florida, Louisiana and Texas also are prone to getting battered by costly hurricanes.
“Extreme weather, coupled with runaway litigation, is the reason for this announcement,” insurance lobbyist and former regulator Lisa Miller said Thursday of the United Property & Casualty decision.
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.