More bad news for Florida homeowners’ insurance market. Another company to stop renewing

Get ready for more insurance madness. Progressive is ‘rebalancing’ in Florida by non-renewing about 100,000 home policies.

Progressive made the announcement Friday in a ‘Florida property update’ to its agents. Progressive’s ‘rebalancing actions’ include no longer providing dwelling/fire or DP3 coverage and nonrenewing certain ‘high-risk’ property policies in Florida. The Insurance Information Institute told WINK News Consumer Reporter Andryanna Sheppard Progressive is nonrenewing about 47,000 DP3 policies and about 53,000 ‘high-risk’ property policies. In addition, the insurer wrote select insurance agents will no longer represent Progressive Home and will begin notifying affected agents as soon as possible. Progressive noted Loggerhead Insurance headquartered in Tampa has agreed to offer replacement coverage to those affected Progressive policyholders. The insurer added it will begin sending its first nonrenewal notices for DP3 polices and “other direct and agency property policies in late December.” Affected policyholders will have until May 2024, just before the start of the 2024 Hurricane Season, to find replacement coverage.

A Progressive spokesperson told Sheppard “the actions we’re taking are necessary to ensure that we can continue to write business in Florida in a meaningful way—and we expect these actions will better position us to build a stronger, more stable, and more competitive Progressive Home business for consumers and independent agents in the long run.”

The Insurance Information Institute told WINK News about 56,000 home policies were quietly non-renewed across the state in 2022. Most were primarily due to roof age before the state regulation was changed.

• READ MORE: Farmers Insurance expected to still cover hurricane season

Progressive has also stopped writing new home businesses in 2022 across all Florida counties. The Insurance Information Institute told WINK News that Progressive’s underwriting results in 2022 were one of the worst of any insurer operating in Florida. They were paying out $2.17 in claims for every dollar of premium collected.

Progressive’s ‘rebalancing’ impact on Florida’s property insurance market

This comes shortly after Florida legislators and officials announced more insurance companies are coming to the state and pointed to legislation passed over the last two years.

“We did transformational change in the insurance and the tort side. Florida had been know as a judicial hellhole,” state Representative Bob Rommel said. “It’s not going to be an instant fix because we have to attract carriers that actually have the confidence that they can do business in Florida and be profitable. It was not like the insurance companies were making tons and tons of money. I’m sure some were but most of them are losing money and many of them went out of business.”

“We’re in a better place today than we were a year ago. I would, by no means, say that we have recovered. Certainly anybody looking at their insurance bill would not feel like we’ve recovered. We have a lot of work to do. We have five new entrants to the market,” added Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky. “That is showing indications that we’re seeing belief system wide in the legislation that passed and that will travel down to consumers over time.”

Progressive said in its statement that the company is “encouraged by and grateful for the work of Florida state officials who helps recently enact needed legislative reforms that are stabilizing the insurance business environment and encouraging new carriers to enter the market.” Progressive does not plan on leaving Florida and will “continue to insure more than 200,000 Floridians and their homes.”

“This is just more disruption in the Florida property insurance market,” added Mark Friedlander with the Insurance Information Institute. “Every time we see some positive steps, such as new companies being approved to start writing business, we hear from companies that want to reduce their risk and are making major changes.”

News of Progressive ‘rebalancing’ comes only a couple of months after AAA said it was not renewing some policies and Farmers Insurance is in the works to completely pull its branded home and auto lines from the state.