By Mia MacGregor

April 16 - (The Insurer) – Florida-based startup Mangrove Property Insurance has assumed around 30,000 policies from Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, effective April 15.

The company received approval from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR) in January to participate in the April assumption of policies from state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

And in that April cycle, Mangrove said it successfully secured an acceptance rate of 86.4% for the policies selected.

“Our goal in this assumption was to invest in our long-term strategy, and to selectively underwrite policies that allow us to provide a stable source of capacity for the policyholders in partnership with the incumbent agents,” said Stephen Weinstein, Mangrove’s founder and CEO.

In a statement, Weinstein said Mangrove underwrote its initial Citizens assumption “robustly,” with the Florida-focused startup utilizing comprehensive data, analytics and its management team’s expertise to structure the portfolio.

“We also brought our partnership ethos to the incumbent agents, striving to achieve a smooth, seamless process, to focus our efforts on policies we believe can be underwritten on an actuarially sound basis within 20% of Citizens rates, and to limit our re-weighting predominantly to reflect our commitment to statewide diversification and exposure management,” Weinstein noted.

The April Citizens assumption is the first that Mangrove has participated in, and, as previously reported, the St. Petersburg-based carrier has already got the green light from FLOIR to be involved in the June cycle.

Across both the April and June assumptions, Mangrove has been approved to potentially assume up to 81,040 policies from residual insurer Citizens.

Former RenaissanceRe general counsel and senior executive Weinstein launched admitted homeowners carrier Mangrove in January.

The company is the 10th new Florida P&C insurer approved since far-reaching industry reforms, designed in part to combat abusive litigation practices by plaintiffs’ attorneys that historically pushed up claims costs and made it tough for insurers to operate in the state, went live in 2023.