Despite the efforts of founder Bill Poe Sr., his sons Bill and Charles and numerous company executives, back-to-back multiple-storm hurricane seasons have blown down the house of Poe Financial Group. The company went into liquidation at the end of May, giving up the struggle to overcome more than $2 billion gross losses (and a reported net loss of some $300 million) from 125,000 claims over the past two years.

Executives of the old-name Tampa company, built and re-molded over the years into the third largest private homeowners' insurance writer in the state, apparently resisted state takeover till the end. Two of the three Poe companies, Southern Family Insurance and Atlantic Preferred, with more than 185,000 policies, had already gone into receivership on April 25 and May 1, respectively, after having been under administrative supervision by the Office of Insurance Regulation starting near the end of January.

Poe attempted to raise capital to salvage some of the 140,000 policies in the remaining company, Florida Preferred Insurance Co. However, the company fell short, which resulted in the state also taking control of the carrier. Leon County Circuit Judge Janet Ferris signed liquidation orders for all three carriers as of May 31. It was also reported in a Tampa area newspaper that Poe officials had attempted to broker a deal before the liquidation that would have given the company millions in annual commissions to act as an agent for Poe policyholders transferred to Citizens Property Insurance Corp.