was also appointed president, expanding his responsibilities over daily operations, and the company created a new position of chief risk officer.By the time Peed became CEO, UPC, which employs over 400 in St. Petersburg, faced consecutive quarters of heavy underwriting losses, negative working capital and generally declining profitability. Efforts to scale back UPC’s exposure and improve return on capital were “just getting started” under Peed’s leadership, Martz said after his appointment.
Around the time of the runoff, UPC requested a $12 million capital infusion from FLOIR, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. The company also became the first insurer to participate in a state-backed stopgap program that permits the state"insurer of last resort," Citizens Property Insurance Corp., to provide reinsurance to carriers that are downgraded in the event they declare insolvency.
Florida’s insurance industry never really recovered from the legacy losses of Irma, Weaver said. Despite Floridians paying more than three times the national average for homeowners’ premiums, the state’s insurance marketplace remains thinly capitalized.Lawsuits against insurers erupted in the wake of Irma, UPC’s financial statements show.
“When they don’t, they have to resort to other tactics to avoid paying claims,” he said, like denying claims outright, delaying the payment process or disputing payment amounts. Miele described a typical occurrence in the claims handling process: An insurer’s independent adjuster values a claim at $250,000, but it receives a public adjuster’s estimate that prices the claim at $2 million. If the policyholder sues, a typical carrier may end up paying out $300,000 in litigation defense, raising their exposure on a $250,000 claim past the half-million mark, Miele said. Then there’s the potential of losing.