Who Actually Writes Homeowners Insurance in Florida, and Why It Is Not Travelers or The Hartford

Updated October 3, 2026. This is a living page. When new official data is released, I revise the numbers and add a dated note to the update log at the bottom.

If you are moving to Sarasota, Tampa, or anywhere else on the Gulf Coast, your first homeowners insurance quote will probably come from a company you have never heard of. American Integrity. Olympus. Tower Hill. Cypress. Security First. Slide. Not Travelers. Not The Hartford. Not the carrier that insured your last house in Ohio or Georgia. Out-of-state buyers ask me why, and some of them assume the agent is steering them to something cheap or shady. This post is the full answer, with the numbers and a link to every source, so you can check it yourself and send it to your lender, your realtor, or your spouse.

I am an independent insurance agent in Sarasota. I place homeowners policies with some of these carriers and not others, and I will tell you where the data is good, where it is thin, and where the reporting is serious enough that you should read the original source.

The short version

• Most Florida homeowners carriers are Florida-only companies, and many were formed after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, some by taking over policies from the state insurer, Citizens.
• The national names did not disappear overnight. They cut back, paused new business, or left in stages, because of hurricane risk, reinsurance costs, and a lawsuit rate that was far out of line with the rest of the country.
• The Florida market lost money for years, then turned profitable in 2024 and 2025 after the 2022 and 2023 legal reforms. Rates are starting to come down.
• Separate from the profit story, a state-commissioned analysis found that about 50 insurers reported losses while sending far more money to their own affiliated companies. That is a real, documented concern, and I cover it below.
• The ratings that tell you whether a company can pay claims are public. The ranking of who handles claims best is not, and I will explain why.

How Florida got here

The story starts with Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Andrew produced more than $15 billion in insured losses, and within a year seven Florida-based property insurers went broke, according to Insurance Journal's 30-year look back. Some of the largest national carriers decided to leave Florida altogether.

The Legislature created Citizens Property Insurance Corporation in August 2002 as a not-for-profit state entity to insure property owners who cannot find coverage in the private market, as described on Citizens' own site. Florida law also requires Citizens to assess most Florida policyholders if a bad storm season leaves it with a deficit. That detail matters to every homeowner in the state, even people who never buy a Citizens policy.

Then came 2004 and 2005. Those hurricane seasons created a gap, and a new kind of company stepped into it. American Integrity's own SEC filing says it was established in 2006 "to capitalize on market dislocations following the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons," and began operating in March 2007 by assuming policies from Citizens, according to its 2025 annual report (Form 10-K). Security First is the same pattern. Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) examination report shows it was incorporated February 8, 2005, began business May 25, 2005, and assumed business from Citizens.

That is the origin of the modern Florida carrier. These companies were built to write the coastal Florida risk that the big national carriers did not want, backed by outside capital and a large reinsurance program. They are not a fringe. They are the market.

Why it is not Travelers or The Hartford

Two numbers explain most of it. First, litigation. According to OIR's data, as reported by Insurance Journal in July 2026, Florida generated about 9 percent of the nation's homeowners claims in 2020 but more than 79 percent of the nation's homeowners lawsuits. By 2025 that had fallen to about 5 percent of claims and 41 percent of lawsuits, after the 2022 and 2023 reforms ended one-way attorney fees and assignment of benefits. Second, reinsurance. AM Best found that active Florida property insurers had a reinsurance dependency of 519.4 percent, against 62.2 percent for the U.S. personal property average, in its 2024 analysis. Florida carriers buy enormous amounts of catastrophe protection from reinsurers, and that cost is built into every premium.

Here is what the larger names did, with dates:

• Farmers. On July 12, 2023, Farmers announced it would stop writing company-branded home, auto, and umbrella policies in Florida, affecting nearly 100,000 customers. Foremost and Bristol West policies were not affected. CBS News report.
• Progressive. In October 2023, Progressive said it would non-renew about 100,000 homeowners and dwelling fire policies in Florida and end some agency relationships. It had already paused new dwelling fire policies in July 2022. Replacement coverage for affected customers was arranged through Loggerhead Reciprocal. Insurance Journal. This is about homeowners. Progressive still writes Florida auto insurance.
• Allstate. Allstate suspended new Florida condominium business in June 2022, and in January 2023 its Castle Key unit said it would non-renew about 33,000 condo unit-owner policies beginning in June 2023, saying the cost to insure those units greatly exceeded what the policies charged. Insurance Journal.
• United Property & Casualty. One of the state's larger Florida-focused carriers suspended new homeowners business effective January 1, 2022, citing the 2020 storm season, reinsurance costs, and worsening litigation. It was declared insolvent in February 2023. Insurance Journal.
• State Farm. This one is more complicated than people remember. In 2009, State Farm Florida filed to leave the state's homeowners market and later agreed to non-renew no more than 125,000 policies instead, per this legal summary. It then stopped writing new homeowners policies for years and resumed writing a limited number, according to the Tampa Bay Times. As of September 30, 2024, it was the second-largest homeowners writer in Florida by policy count.

Neither Travelers nor The Hartford appears among the 25 largest Florida homeowners writers in OIR's policy counts as of September 30, 2024, ranked in the table below. That is notable, because The Hartford was second in J.D. Power's 2026 national homeowners claims satisfaction study. A company can be excellent at claims and still decide that Florida wind and litigation risk does not fit its model.

In my own day-to-day placement work, the national names that still write here generally want newer construction, newer roofs, and a narrow slice of the risk. If you are buying an older home near the water, you will usually be looking at the Florida carriers or Citizens.

Who writes the most homeowners policies in Florida

These counts are owner-occupied homeowners policies reported to OIR as of September 30, 2024, compiled by WeShop Insurance. They have moved since, which I explain right after the table. Citizens' book has shrunk sharply and several newer carriers have grown.

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation data, compiled by WeShop Insurance. Owner-occupied homeowners policies only. Excludes condo, renters, and landlord policies.

Here is what has changed since that snapshot. OIR's Property Insurance Stability Report dated July 1, 2026 says Citizens had nearly 1 million policies and approached 1.2 million at year-end 2022, and reported 293,465 policies as of June 5, 2026, the lowest in 25 years. OIR says Citizens is no longer the state's largest property insurer. It also says 21 new companies have been approved to write residential property in Florida since the reforms. Where did those policies go? Largely to the private carriers above, through takeouts.

The takeout, and why some of these companies are brand new

A takeout is when a private carrier is approved to assume a block of Citizens policies. It is how most of the startups got their first book, in 2005 and again in the last three years. It is also the source of one of the most common complaints I hear: homeowners who say they never chose the company on their new policy.

CBS News examined that in a March 2026 investigation of Trident Reciprocal Exchange, a newer company that received policies through Citizens' depopulation program. CBS reported that homeowners were moved without their direct involvement, and that former executives and other insiders alleged Trident was diverting millions of dollars in customer premium to investors through a deal with an investor-owned affiliate called Triton Re. Those are allegations. A Trident representative told CBS the affiliate transactions were legitimate and industry standard. I am telling you about it because it is exactly the kind of reporting you should read before you accept a takeout notice, not because the question has been decided.

If Citizens moves your policy, you have the right to look at the new company before you accept. Check its rating, its hurricane deductible, and who owns it. You can also shop the policy elsewhere.

The high-end carriers: Chubb, Vault, PURE, AIG

A different group of carriers sits above this market. They are called private client or high-net-worth carriers, and they underwrite differently. Chubb is the best known. Vault, PURE, and AIG's private client business are the others people ask about.

• Vault was founded by Charles Williamson, a former president of AIG Private Client, with Scott Carmilani, the chief executive of Allied World, which was the majority owner at launch. It is an admitted reciprocal based in St. Petersburg and began writing in Florida on November 1, 2017. At launch it targeted high-net-worth homes starting at $750,000 on the coast and $500,000 inland, with a sweet spot of $3 million and up, per Insurance Journal. Those were launch-era figures. Ask for current guidelines.
• AIG now runs its high-net-worth business through Private Client Select, a managing general underwriter majority owned by AIG and Stone Point Capital. In July 2024 it named Ryan Specialty its exclusive wholesale broker for its excess and surplus lines business in the high and ultra-high-net-worth markets, according to the announcement. For that part of the book, access runs through a wholesale broker, not a direct quote screen.
• Chubb ranked third in J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study, with a score of 744 on a 1,000-point scale. The industry average was 702. Carrier Management summary.
• PURE is a member-owned reciprocal exchange focused on high-value homes.

Chubb and PURE do not publish firm minimum home values that I can point you to, so I am not going to quote you a number as if it were a rule. Here is what I see in practice. These carriers underwrite the whole client, not the single house. A $900,000 home on its own, with one car and no umbrella, is a mid-market account, and the high-end carriers will often pass or price it out of reach. They want the account: several homes, a collection or valuable articles schedule, multiple vehicles, a boat, an umbrella that sits on top of everything. When the account is that size, you qualify for broader coverage, better claims service, and underwriting that actually looks at how you live. If it is not, the Florida carriers are the market for your house. Neither choice is a judgment on you. It is how the carrier decides which risks it wants.

The profits: what the reports actually say

There are two separate stories about Florida insurer profits, and they get blended together. They are not the same.

The market made money after years of losing it

AM Best reported that Florida's personal property market posted its first underwriting profit in eight years in 2024, an underwriting gain of $207 million after a $174 million loss in 2023, on more than $11 billion in direct premium, up from about $5 billion in 2020. That is the AM Best analysis of 45 insurers, excluding Citizens and the large national carriers. For 2025, Morningstar DBRS, as reported by Insurance Business, put net income at about $2.1 billion, the highest in a decade, with an underwriting profit of roughly $1.86 billion and a combined ratio of 83 percent against 116 percent in 2020. A combined ratio under 100 means the company took in more in premium than it paid out in claims and expenses. OIR's own July 2026 report confirms a pooled combined ratio of 83 percent for 2025, the lowest recorded in more than a decade.

Two other facts belong next to those numbers. Homeowners premiums rose about 50 percent between 2020 and 2025, per the same Morningstar DBRS estimate. And rates are now moving the other direction: OIR reports that for policies effective in 2024 or later, 44 companies have requested rate decreases and another 48 have requested no change.

The affiliate money

The second story is the one that should concern you more. In 2022, OIR's consultant, Risk & Regulatory Consulting, delivered an analysis of 53 property insurers. The Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel later obtained it through a public-records request. The analysis found that insurers recorded $432 million in losses from 2017 through 2019 while their affiliated companies recorded about $1.3 billion in net income. At some companies, managing general agents charged between 20 and 34 percent of premium, and total affiliated fees reached as high as 63 percent. The consultant concluded that at least 20 companies paid their affiliates more than the "fair and reasonable" amount the law allows. Hoodline summary and Orlando Sentinel column.

Read the caveats the same way you read the findings. Insurance commissioners, past and present, have described the analysis as incomplete or flawed, and the agency did not release it. In September 2026 the Florida Senate demanded the newspapers stop using and destroy their copies. The period is 2017 to 2019, before the 2022 and 2023 reforms. And paying an affiliate is legal, and common, for a lot of legitimate services. The question is how much, and whether the insurer is left with enough to pay claims. OIR's July 2026 report says it introduced legislation in the 2025 and 2026 sessions to increase regulation and oversight of reciprocal insurers and their attorneys-in-fact. The bill that would have required insurers to justify affiliate payments passed the House and died in the Senate in March 2026, per the USA Herald.

So what is the reality? Florida insurers lost money for years, nine to ten of them went insolvent between 2021 and 2023, and they are making money now. At the same time, the way some of them route that money is still being fought over. Both are true. If you live here, you take the market as it is: these carriers, Citizens, or surplus lines.

What the claims reporting shows

Profit and solvency do not tell you how a company treats you after a loss. Two pieces of reporting are worth reading.

On September 29, 2024, 60 Minutes aired a report on Hurricane Ian claims. Two licensed adjusters said their damage estimates were reduced after they filed them, and that they were pressured to leave out items like roof replacements. One said 44 of his 46 Heritage claims were altered downward. Heritage told 60 Minutes it denied any intent to deceive, said its own random sample showed 42 percent of estimates revised downward and 26 percent upward, attributed the issue to software that did not credit adjusters for changes, and said it had made reforms since Ian. Florida opened a criminal investigation, and after two years there had been no arrests. Read the transcript for the full detail, including the company's response.

The other side is in OIR's data on claims closed without payment. After Hurricanes Helene and Milton, OIR reported that the top reasons were damage below the deductible and flood denials. For Helene, 33 percent of closed-without-payment claims were below the deductible and 20 percent were flood coverage denials. For Milton, 41 percent were below the deductible. The data is aggregate, not by company. See the OIR announcement. The point for a buyer: a lot of "unpaid" claims are not denials. They are losses smaller than your deductible. That is why your deductible matters more than any carrier's marketing.

Who is best at paying claims? Here is what exists

I wish I could hand you a clean Florida ranking. It does not exist, and anyone who gives you one is guessing or selling something. What does exist:

J.D. Power, national only

The 2026 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study surveyed 5,093 homeowners who filed a claim in the prior nine months, with fieldwork from December 2024 through December 2025. Amica scored 773, The Hartford 756, and Chubb 744, against an industry average of 702. The published results list national carriers and include no state-level breakdown. Read the J.D. Power release. It tells you who handles claims well across the country. It does not tell you how a Florida-only carrier performs.

Florida complaint counts, with a big warning

Florida's Department of Financial Services logs consumer complaints. Residential complaints rose from 10,219 in 2020 to more than 23,400 in 2024. From 2020 through 2024, the counts for the largest names were roughly 16,170 for Universal Property & Casualty, about 4,700 each for American Integrity and State Farm Florida, about 3,900 for Heritage, and about 3,600 for Security First, according to Insurance Journal.

Do not read that as a ranking. Raw counts rise with policy counts, and Universal's attorney told Insurance Journal that the DFS totals include issues settled through DFS's own mediation process and assistance requests that should not count as complaints, arguing that without mediation complaints rose only slightly. To compare fairly, use a complaint ratio that adjusts for size. The NAIC's Consumer Information Source publishes one, where 1.0 is the national average.

Who can pay claims: the ratings

This is the word you were looking for: solvency, or financial strength. Three rating agencies matter in Florida. AM Best rates the large national carriers. Demotech rates most of the Florida-focused companies, and its ratings are accepted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for mortgages. Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) rates a smaller group. Demotech's president has said its ratings ask whether a company's reinsurance program gives it the claims-paying ability it needs, as described in Demotech's own explanation of the Florida market.

Here are the Demotech ratings shown on each company's Demotech page when I checked on October 3, 2026. Demotech's scale runs from A″ and A′ at the top, called "unsurpassed," through A, called "exceptional." Click through for the current status.

Sources: each company's Demotech page, and KBRA's published rating actions for Tower Hill and American Integrity. Demotech and KBRA use different scales, so the letters do not compare across agencies.

Two cautions. First, a rating is a snapshot, not a guarantee. In 2022, Demotech downgraded United Property & Casualty from A to M, and withdrew its A ratings for FedNat and Weston, per Artemis. United Property was declared insolvent in February 2023. Demotech's own page notes that one of the companies that failed had been rated A by both Demotech and AM Best before it collapsed. Second, the list of failures is long. Insurance Journal counted at least ten insolvencies since early 2021, including Southern Fidelity, Weston, Avatar, St. Johns, FedNat, and United Property, while CBS News, counting property insurers from 2021 through 2023, put the number at nine. When a Florida company fails, the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association steps in to pay covered claims, which is a backstop, not a promise that your claim will be handled the way your carrier would have handled it.

What to do if you are moving here

• Do not shop price alone. Look at the company's rating, the date it was last affirmed, and who owns it.
• Read the hurricane deductible. Most Florida policies carry a separate percentage deductible for named storms, commonly 2 to 5 percent of the dwelling limit. On a $500,000 dwelling, 2 percent is $10,000 and 5 percent is $25,000 before the policy pays.
• Ask about the roof. Roof age and type drive both eligibility and price with most of these carriers.
• Flood is separate. Homeowners policies do not cover flood, and every Florida property has some flood risk. See our flood insurance page.
• If Citizens moves your policy, check the new carrier before you accept, and compare it against other quotes.
• If you own a high-value home with real assets, ask whether a private client carrier is an option. Our high-value home insurance page covers it.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice, and ratings, policy counts, and carrier appetites change often. Every figure above is dated and linked so you can confirm it. If you are relocating to the Gulf Coast and want to know what your specific house will qualify for, call 941-957-2796 or start with our homeowners insurance page. I will tell you which carriers are likely to write it, what the deductible looks like, and what the policy will not cover.

Update Log

• October 3, 2026: Published. Carrier ratings, policy counts, and the profit and affiliate-payment reports were checked against their sources on this date.