Some Citizens buyout learn offers rescinded

Some Citizens Property Insurance policy holders offered buyouts from private companies are seeing those offers being taken off the table.

“It wasn’t a lot of letters, but it was a significant amount,” Robert Norberg of Arden Insurance in Lantana said.

The reactions from his clients, Norberg said, ranged from confusion to asking, “How can they do that to me?”

“My clients have been skeptical and they’re like, hey why am I being thrown back out of a good deal,” he said.

In a statement, a Citizens Insurance spokesman said “typically, takeout companies mail out more offer letters than they are approved for because not all policyholders will accept an offer.”

“Once the offer period closes, companies review the policies they know are coming their way and have the authority to rescind an offer.”

The statement said this happens for any number of reasons including too many policies in one region or too policies of certain type.

Citizens has been involved in a large assumption program to reduce policy numbers, now over 1.4 million.

In many cases, Citizens customers rejected the offers if the new premiums were more than 20% of their Citizens premium.

Norberg said this latest development just adds more confusion.

“It is a huge undertaking and challenge for Citizens,” he said.

“They’re not only putting out for assumption but taking in per month, they’re still taking in to the tune of 50,000 policies a month.”

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