Mangrove Property Insurance has assumed 30,000 policies from Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp., effective April 15, as part of the state’s ongoing depopulation efforts.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation previously authorized Mangrove to assume up to 81,040 policies between April and June. The company reported an acceptance rate of 86.4% for the April cycle and intends to follow the same strategy during the June assumption period.
Mangrove Property is a newly established insurer in Florida, officially incorporated on January 9 this year, and headquartered in St. Petersburg. The company received its certificate of authority from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) on January 15, allowing it to offer property and casualty insurance statewide.
To support its operations, Mangrove collaborates with Gallagher Re as its reinsurance broker and Gallagher Securities as its capital markets advisor.
Stephen Weinstein (pictured above), founder and CEO of Mangrove Property, said the company’s approach in this cycle was driven by data analytics and portfolio structuring experience.
“We also brought our partnership ethos to the incumbent agents, striving to achieve a smooth, seamless process, to focus our efforts on policies we believe can be underwritten on an actuarially sound basis within 20% of Citizens rates and to limit our reweighting predominantly to reflect our commitment to statewide diversification and exposure management,” he said.
Under Florida rules, a private insurer must offer coverage priced no more than 20% higher than Citizens’ rates to assume a policy. Citizens, the state’s insurer of last resort, says that policyholders who receive multiple private-market offers will be assigned to the insurer with the lowest estimated premium if they do not make a selection before the deadline specified in the offer.
Last month, the OIR approved three private insurers to assume up to 135,540 personal residential multiperil policies from Citizens, continuing the state’s effort to reduce the size of its insurer of last resort.
Patriot Select Property and Casualty Insurance Co. received authorization to assume up to 39,500 policies. Slide Insurance Co., meanwhile, was approved for 15,000 policies.
In 2023, private insurers received approval to assume up to one million policies from Citizens, with approximately 407,643 policies transitioned to the private market.
In 2024, efforts to depopulate the program intensified. As of the end of the year, over 428,000 policies had been moved off Citizens' books through take-out offers.
The trend continues this year. By February, Citizens' policy count had dropped to approximately 844,688, marking the lowest total in nearly three years.
As of mid-March, Citizens reported 851,210 policies in force, down from 936,182 at the end of 2024.
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