Tampa Bay insurer gets state approval to pick up $75M in policies

HCI says Condo Owners Reciprocal Exchange, an HCI-sponsored reciprocal insurer with plans to write commercial residential policies, received approval from Florida insurance regulators to transact insurance in the Sunshine State.

A reciprocal insurer is an unincorporated aggregation of at least 25 policyholders operating through an attorney in fact to provide insurance among themselves. A reciprocal insurer is essentially owned by its policyholders, but its operations, such as underwriting, claims and management services, are provided by an attorney-in-fact for a predetermined management fee, HCI says.

HCI says Condo Owners Reciprocal Exchange, or CORE, plans to commence operations in February 2024 by assuming thousands of policies representing approximately $75 million of in-force premium from Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida’s state-backed insurance company.

HCI says CORE will be its first foray into commercial residential policies.

"The technology we've built and our management expertise enabled us to identify attractive policies at Citizens for assumption and begin operations quickly," says Paresh Patel, HCI chairman and CEO. "We appreciate the dedicated efforts by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to approve the formation of CORE and help bring additional customer choice to Florida. We expect CORE will offer select Citizens policyholders terms similar to their existing Citizens policies."

The news comes shortly after HCI picked up almost 54,000 policies from Citizens, which the state of Florida has been trying to "de-populate" as the insurer of last resort.

HCI Group owns subsidiaries engaged in homeowners insurance, information technology services, insurance management, real estate and reinsurance. HCI's leading insurance operation, TypTap Insurance Co., is a technology-driven homeowners insurance company. TypTap’s operations are powered in large part by insurance-related information technology developed by HCI’s software subsidiary, Exzeo USA.

HCI's real estate subsidiary, Greenleaf Capital LLC, owns and operates multiple properties in Florida, including office buildings, retail centers and marinas. 

HCI’s largest subsidiary, Homeowners Choice Property and Casualty Insurance Co., provides homeowners insurance primarily in Florida.