TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – June 3, 2008 – Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty signed off on plans to allow six insurance companies to take an additional 100,000 policies out of state-run insurer Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

The state requires insurers seeking Citizens’ policies to have at least $5 million in start-up capital, and most of these new insurers have two or three times more than the required start-up capital. The new state-approved companies are: American Integrity, Argus Fire & Casualty, Avatar Property and Casualty, Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty, Magnolia, and Southern Oak.

So far in 2008, Florida’s regulators have authorized the removal of 500,000 policies from Citizens, which still continues to experience significant growth. The state’s insurer of last resort currently has about 1.5 million policies, and remains the largest state-backed insurance company in the U.S. Massachusetts comes in second with only about 217,000 policies.

Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL) (06/02/08) Palm, Anika Myers

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