new property and casualty (P&C) insurer has been approved to operate in Florida by the state's Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworksy earlier this week, in yet another sign of improvement for the Sunshine State's troubled property insurance market.
Newly formed Florida-based insurance company Mangrove, headquartered just out of St. Petersburg and led by industry expert Stephen Weinstein, joins 10 other insurers which have been approved to enter the Florida market after Tallahassee legislators passed a series of regulatory reforms to stabilize the state in 2022-2023.
Newsweek contacted the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) and Mangrove for comment by email on Wednesday morning, outside of standard working hours.
Why It Matters
A combination of widespread fraud, excessive and unnecessary litigation, and the growing risk posed by natural disasters, made more frequent and more severe by climate change, has led to an exodus of insurers in Florida in the past few years. Several major insurers have cut coverage in the state's most vulnerable areas or withdrawn entirely; this has left homeowners scrambling for options, while premiums skyrocketed.
The addition of new insurers to the market is a hopeful sign, giving homeowners more options for coverage and could ultimately increase competition, helping drive down rates.
What To Know
Mangrove, which will offer coverage through licensed independent agents across all 67 counties in the Sunshine State, was created with the idea of providing sustainable P&C insurance to Floridians, offering competitive rates "while ensuring robust catastrophic event risk management," Reinsurance News reported.
According to the Florida OIR, the company plans to assume 81,000 homeowner policies from Florida's insurer of last resort, Citizens, by April 15. That does not mean that all targeted homeowners would accept the offer to move to Mangrove: OIR data published by the Insurance Journal shows that roughly 10 percent of offers were accepted by policyholders in 2024.
The addition of Mangrove to Florida's property insurance market is being celebrated by regulators as a success.
The company is the latest to enter the market since the 2022-2023 legislative reforms, joining ASI Select Insurance, Trident Reciprocal Exchange, Ovation Home Insurance Exchange, Manatee Insurance Exchange, Condo Owners Reciprocal Exchange, Orange Insurance Exchange, Orion180 Select Insurance Company, Orion180 Insurance Company, Mainsail Insurance Company, and Tailrow Insurance Exchange.
In another sign of improvement, Florida homeowners also avoided massive rate hikes last year. Since January 2024, 17 insurers have filed for a rate decrease and 34 companies have requested no change or a zero percent increase, according to the OIR's data.
Compared to two years ago, 60 percent of the top 10 national carriers in Florida have expanded their book of business, and 40 percent filed rate decreases, regulators said.
Insurance firm Citizens, whose size had ballooned in the past few years, causing concerns among experts, is also successfully being depopulated: for the first time in more than two years, the state-backed company's policy count is under 1 million.
Last year, the OIR approved 18 private insurers to take over more than 1.2 million policies from Citizens, reducing its exposure by more than $170 billion.
What People Are Saying
Yaworksy said on Monday: "We are working hard every day to recruit more insurers to our state. Thanks to recent historic legislative reforms, Florida's insurance market is stabilizing, and more companies are entering the market."
He added: "Domestic companies reported more than $389 million in net income as of September 2024. We will continue to emphasize the encouraging signs of the resilience and growth of our market to attract more business to our state."
Weinstein, Mangrove's CEO, said in a statement Monday: "Smart legislative and regulatory reforms have stabilized Florida's marketplace, giving us confidence to enter the market with new capital and capacity to help homeowners meet their property insurance needs. J
"Just as mangroves protect Florida's coastlines from erosion and storm surge, Mangrove Property Insurance Company is committed to being a permanent solution Floridians can turn to in protecting their property."
What's Next
After facing significant vulnerability in the past few years, the Florida property insurance market seems to finally be righting itself.
Increased competition from new insurers might incentivize existing companies to improve their offerings—whether through better customer service, more comprehensive coverage options, or more competitive pricing. This could lead to an overall improvement in the quality of home insurance in the state.
New entries to the market may also bring fresh ideas for managing risk, such as innovative ways to assess and price risk related to hurricanes or flooding, which would ultimately ensure the sustainability of the sector.
But experts have warned that more efforts, including regulatory reforms and new ways of calculating risk, are necessary to solve the state's property insurance crisis.
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