The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said today that it has approved the plans of six insurance companies to remove another 100,000 homeowners policies next month from the state's insurer of last resort.

An announcement from Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said some of the companies already began taking out policies earlier this year from Citizens Property Insurance Corp., and others will begin with the June take-out.

Florida law allows Citizens' policyholders to refuse offers from the private companies and stay in Citizens. All of the take-out companies have agreed to offer the same or better coverage than the policyholder had with Citizens, and at the same or lower price, the OIR said.

“Every company removing these policyholders into the private market has met Florida's rigorous licensing standards, and most of the newer companies were licensed with double or triple the statutorily required start-up capital of $5 million,” Mr. McCarty said in a statement. “We monitor the removal process very carefully to ensure policyholder protection.”

OIR said that, to date, it has approved plans to remove up to 500,000 policies in 2008 from the state-created insurance company and place them in the private market.

The six companies that have just been approved to remove Citizens policies are:

o American Integrity Insurance Co. of Florida: up to 75,000 policies total; 42,000 removed to date.

o Argus Fire & Casualty Insurance Co.: up to 18,000 policies total; 12,360 removed to date.

o Avatar Property and Casualty Insurance Co.: up to 10,000 policies total in June.

o Homeowners Choice Property & Casualty Insurance Co.: up to 30,000 policies total; 20,000 removed to date.

o Magnolia Insurance Co.: up to 60,000 policies total in June.

o Southern Oak Insurance Co.: up to 75,000 policies total; 6,678 removed to date.

Special Reports /

Florida Moving More Insureds From Citizens

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