Storms support St. Petersburg insurer’s rebirth 

While it may seem counterintuitive, a devastating hurricane season helped fuel the launch of a new St. Petersburg-based property insurance company. 

Patriot Select Property and Casualty Insurance has risen from the ashes of another local insurer caught in the industry’s previous crisis. The state’s regulatory board approved its business plan Monday. 

John Rollins, CEO of Patriot Select, is one of two company leaders who previously held executive positions with Florida’s state-backed “insurer of last resort.” He said the 2024 hurricane season proved that legislative efforts to rehabilitate the industry have worked. 

“Even though we had three hurricanes make landfall, the market was resilient, and claims came in at about half the level that was expected,” Rollins said. “So, it was really proof of concept that the litigation reforms are actually working.”

Rollins, a fourth-generation Floridian, has spent over three decades in the insurance industry. He called it a “tricky business, but one that I love.”

People continue moving to the state in droves, and many want to live near the water. Florida is known for its severe weather, yet residents still want affordable property insurance. 

It is impossible to predict the number of annual storms or associated impacts, which increases the challenge of maintaining a healthy insurance industry. Rampant litigation exacerbated those issues.

In 2022, Florida was responsible for 8% of property claims and 80% of lawsuits. “You could kind of have one or the other and have affordable property insurance, but you can’t have both,” Rollins said.

Insurers began exiting the state en masse, and policies began pouring into state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Rollins previously served as the organization’s chief risk officer. 

Former local senator Jeff Brandes was an outspoken proponent of insurance reform. He now chairs Patriot Select’s board. 

“In early 2023, when the reforms were passed, I had a really good feeling – and so did he – that the reforms were really going to cut litigation,” Rollins said. “So, we started thinking about a property insurance company.” 

That company was Anchor Property & Casualty Insurance Co. The St. Petersburg-based insurer once held over 43,000 policies with about $69 million in premiums. It entered a state-supervised runoff in early 2020.

In late 2023, Anchor’s board enlisted Rollins to explore the feasibility of re-entering the market. The Insurance Journal wrote that emerging from an orderly runoff has “never happened in Florida.” 

“We rebranded that company, put new people on the board, hired a new management team, put together a completely new, forward-looking business plan in response to the way conditions are now in the reinsurance and claims environment, and started trying to raise capital,” Rollins explained. “And though we really thought the reforms were panning out, it wasn’t obvious until Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit.” 

From left: Kelly Booten, chief operating officer; Emily Craig, director of litigated claims; CEO John Rollins and Marcia Lamb, chief financial officer. Photo: Patriot Select.

Rollins and his team subsequently raised $29 million through a funding round that closed last week. They are now securing reinsurance and independent agents, and he expects to begin writing policies in June. 

About 500,000 policies have shifted from Citizens to the private market since 2024. After more than 10 insolvencies from 2020 to 2023, Patriot Select is the 13th new insurer to enter Florida over the past two years. 

Like many new carriers, Patriot Select will jump-start its business by taking thousands of policies from Citizens. Kelly Booten, former chief operating officer for Citizens, will hold the same role with Patriot Select. 

“If you want to have the best, most experienced and most capable people running a Florida property insurance organization, you really should have people with some knowledge of how Citizens works,” Rollins said.

He believes Patriot Select’s forward-looking focus differentiates it from legacy carriers still navigating previous industry issues and claims from several consecutive active hurricane seasons. Rollins said the company’s team, including Brandes, has a “good feel for balancing the needs” of investors, regulators, lawmakers and policyholders – “the people you ultimately have to take care of.” 

The insurer has five executives in place and will hire additional staff. However, Rollins said Patriot Select will outsource some operations and rely on local, “strong vendor partners” to reduce overhead.