Florida’s Anchor Insurance is Reborn as Patriot Select With $29M in Capital

It was once known as Anchor Property & Casualty Insurance Co., based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and launched in 2014. Then it was known as another Florida carrier that had slipped into financial troubles and was placed into an orderly runoff during the height of the claims litigation crisis.

Today, it has been born again as Patriot Select Property and Casualty Insurance, the latest entry (or re-entry) into the reformed Florida market. Company leaders hope to have at least 40,000 policies in force by the end of this year.

“We’re very pleased to be fully capitalized. We should have about $29 million in the carrier to start,” said CEO John Rollins, who has worked for the past 18 months to raise the capital and organize a management team.

Rollins is a fixture in Florida’s property insurance world, having served in multiple roles over the last 30 years, including chief financial officer at Olympus Insurance and risk officer at Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Others in the Patriot Select C-suite include some well-known names: Kelly Booten, formerly the chief operating officer at Citizens, is the new COO at Patriot Select. Marcia Lamb, previously with Kin Insurance, Centauri and Universal North America, is CFO.

Florida’s insurance commissioner approved Patriot Select in a consent order dated April 14, after other orders this year signed off on plans for the carrier to make takeout offers on thousands of Citizens policies. The Office of Insurance Regulation website shows Patriot Select as being first licensed in Florida in 2014, since the company is, technically, a new version of Anchor.

But Rollins said the new Patriot has little in common with its predecessor.

“The capital, the management team, the board and the business plan are totally different,” he told Insurance Journal this week. “There’s really nothing left over that’s a legacy from the shell of the old Anchor P&C.”

The board of directors in 2023 decided the new name fit the ethos of board members, and all agreed on it.

Rollins declined to say where the startup capital is coming from, except that the majority is from a handful of recognizable insurance services firms, including brokerages, claims firms and managing general agents. And a large minority of the funding has come from Florida-based individuals, family owned insurance offices, and smaller investors.

“They know that this is the time to invest because the Legislature has been very successful and the reforms of 2022 and 2023 are working very well,” he said.

Statewide, average homeowners’ insurance rates are starting to drop, if only slightly, and litigation levels have fallen sharply since the 2022 statutory changes were enacted, he noted. That has produced a healthier climate that fosters competition among market-based insurers, which can now offer reasonable premiums and “still make money,” he added.

After more than 10 insolvencies from 2020 to 2023, Patriot Select is the 13th new property insurer to join the Florida market in the last three years, a sign that insurance industry advocates and regulators have said is a sure sign that the reforms are having their intended effect.

The new carrier, for now, will focus on residential policies all around the state – except for Key West and Monroe County (although that could change later, he noted). But Patriot Select will not write condominium or rental property coverage, at least for the near future.

It is starting with takeout offers on 39,500 Citizens policies, and Rollins hopes that the firm’s “average level” rates will lead to at least 60% of the offers being accepted by June.

“June is not the traditional time that companies do big takeouts because you have to buy reinsurance for them right away, during hurricane season,” he said. “But we still think it’s a good business plan.” Perhaps not as good as a December takeout but still do-able if the firm acts quickly on reinsurance, he noted. And reinsurance prices and availability have continued to improve since the legislative reforms, he said.

Following another potential takeout offer in December, the company plans to rely on voluntary, open-market sales through insurance agents around Florida.

Patriot Select will likely offer an optional roof-age/actual cash value endorsement for most homeowner policies, but “we won’t emphasize that,” Rollins said. The carrier also plans to offer homeowners the option of using Patriot Select’s preferred contractors to help quickly secure the property and begin repairs after storm damage. But unlike some policies offered by People’s Trust Insurance and a few other carriers, that choice will be left to policyholders, he noted.

Rollins said he has no significant concerns that recent policy decisions by President Donald Trump’s administration will raise insurance repair costs and premiums for Floridians. The administration has introduced a slew of tariffs on foreign materials and has formulated a plan to deport immigrant labor, which multiple economists have predicted will raise costs nationwide.

“There’s always concerns that you can deploy both labor and materials when policyholders need you at the time of the claim,” Rollins said. “Things are working pretty smoothly in Florida now and we don’t anticipate having any problems getting the resources we need to respond to people.”

While Tampa-based American Integrity Insurance announced this week that it plans to become publicly traded on the stock exchange, joining a few other Florida carriers, Rollins said it’s too soon to think about an initial public offering for Patriot Select.

“We have a five-year plan that involves steadily growing our homeowners business,” he said. “At the end of five years, if investors are looking for an exit through an IPO, I suppose we would consider that. But we’re not looking that far ahead now.”

Read More: Life After Runoff? Anchor Board Began Exploring Possibilities in 2023

Topics Florida