Travelers Insurance Cos. are exiting the Write-Your-Own market,selling the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policies itscompanies write to American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida(ABIC).
|ABIC is part of an Assurant Inc., unit that is based inAtlanta.
|Write-Your-Own companies sell National Flood Insurance Programpolicies as part of their homeowners' insurance business, and alsohandle claims processing.
|There are approximately 85 WYO companies.
|Gary Griffin, a spokesman for Travelers, said, “This was asmall, non-core part of our business and exiting the programeliminates the operational complexity associated with maintainingseparate underwriting and claim processes required forparticipation.”
|Griffin said Travelers is working with ABIC to ensure a smoothtransition for policyholders and agents. We will continue toservice and provide claim handling for policies issued throughTravelers.”
|He said Travelers is retaining the underlying homeowners'policies written by Travelers companies.
|Travelers said it will stop writing new WYO business on Sept.15, 2013, and it will stop offering WYO renewal policies on Sept.1, 2013, for policies effective Oct. 15, 2013, and later.
|The action is unlike the decision of State Farm to exit the WYOmarket in 2010 due to uncertainties related to the authorization ofthe NFIP.
|At that time, State Farm turned over approximately 831,972 NFIPpolicies in stages back to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.They are now being administered through “NFIP-direct.”
|A data processing company called CSC, based in Virginia, tookover those policies. CSC was sold in August to National FloodServices, Inc. (NFS), based in Kalispell, Mont. NFS does most ofthe back-office work for 50 Write-Your-Own companies.
|Want to continue reading?
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