Insurance insider rule reversed
–14 March 2008
Citizens Property Insurance will have to notify policyholders when a private insurer wants to assume their policy, reversing a little-known rule that allowed insurance agents to block homeowners from switching to cheaper carriers, insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty has announced.
McCarty's order ends a Citizens policy, known only to insurance insiders, that allowed agents to retain veto power on whether customers of Citizens - the state's largest insurer with 1.2 million polices - could go to so-called "take-out" insurance companies created to assume Citizens' less-risky policies.
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