Citizens Sept. 19 Committee Meetings Recap

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (“Citizens”) Market Accountability Advisory Committee, Audit Committee and Finance and Investment Committee each met on September 19, 2007. 

Following are highlights from the respective meetings:

 

Market Accountability Advisory Committee

• Claims Task Force Update and Month-End Report

o As of August 31, 2007, Citizens had:
 3,330 open claims
 1,863 closed claims
 1,467 pending claims–approximately 56% of open claims now closed
 1,361,653 policies in force
 $495,488,516,612 in exposure (i.e., Coverages A, B and C)
 $3,506,300,229 in premium

• Web site

o Citizens is in the process of improving its Web site by adding policyholder information to it
o The company is actively using the Web to support its procurement process (e.g., open RFP’s)
o Although to date claims may only be submitted online by agents, Citizens is working on changing this so that policyholders may submit claims via the Internet as well

• Actuarial and Underwriting

o As of July 1, 2007, in order for a policyholder to exclude wind coverage, he/she must sign a handwritten statement to that effect–a Spanish version of such statement is being drafted and will soon be filed with the Office of Insurance Regulation
o Citizens recently made a commercial non-residential multi-peril rule and rate filing
o Citizens is addressing issues in the processing of its commercial residential policies 

Audit Committee

• The Committee is recommending that the Board of Governors hire Joyce Bellows as the new Chief of Internal Audit
• The Committee is considering hiring independent counsel and will obtain a list of law firms and financial arrangements for review at its next meeting

o The hiring of independent counsel was initially discussed during the Committee’s June 2007 meeting but to date, only two (2) firms have expressed an interest
o Most audit committees of companies the size of Citizens have special counsel and do not rely on the company’s general counsel–as such, the Committee is thinking about obtaining counsel on an as-needed basis

Finance and Investment Committee Meeting

• Many of Citizens’ assets are tied to the LIBOR index and LIBOR is currently very volatile; however, John Forney from Raymond James (i.e., Citizens’ financial advisor) gave a status of the market report and recommended that Citizens keep the status quo

The above information is intended to be a general summary of the discussions that took place during the Committee meetings.  It is neither intended to provide specific analysis nor should it be relied upon in making individual business decisions.

Should you have any questions or comments regarding this information, please feel free to contact this office.