Florida Citizens’ Personal Lines Account cat bond upsized to $110m

Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has opted to slightly upsize its remaining Personal Lines Account tranche of its new catastrophe bond issue, with the Everglades Re II Ltd. (Series 2020-2) deal growing by 10% to $110 million by pricing.

Having withdrawn the larger $200 million layer of Coastal Account linked catastrophe bond notes, Citizens still opted for slightly more reinsurance than expected from the Personal Lines Account coverage layer, but at a cost as the deal priced with a coupon around 22% higher than the mid-point of the initial guidance range.

Florida Citizens had returned to the catastrophe bond market at the beginning of May in search of at least $300 million of collateralised reinsurance protection to cover a section of its coastal account and personal lines account towers.

The insurer then had to hike the marketed pricing considerably to meet the rate expectations of ILS investors, as Florida reinsurance renewal rates were rising steeply.

After that, Florida Citizens then opted to withdraw the $200 million Coastal Account layer of its cat bond issuance, but persisted with a $100 million layer to provide reinsurance for its Personal Lines Account tower.

The insurers CFO Jennifer Montero then told us that this was a direct reaction to what is seen as irrational pricing in the reinsurance and capital markets, making single-year traditional reinsurance a better option for the Coastal Account at this 2020 renewal.

So, as a result, it’s encouraging to learn that the cat bond tranche that will provide reinsurance for Citizens Personal Lines Account has been upsized, albeit slightly by 10% to reach $110 million.

This issuance is the first that that Florida Citizens has looked to bring the capital markets into the reinsurance tower for its personal lines account, which is the portion of its book where multi-peril homeowner policies are the focus of the subject business.

The now $110 million tranche of Everglades Re II Series 2020-2 Class A notes will provide Florida Citizens with aggregate reinsurance protection against named storm losses for its personal lines account tower, across a three-year terms and using an indemnity trigger.

The notes would attach at $1.641 billion of losses across a $637 million layer, giving them an initial expected loss of 1.22%

The pricing for this layer of notes settled at 6.25%, which represents a roughly 22% increase from the mid-point of the initial guidance range.

So, despite the withdrawal of the Coastal Account coverage from the catastrophe bond market, cat bond investors are now playing a role in Florida Citizens Personal Lines Account tower, marking an expansion of capital markets reinsurance coverage for the insurer.

You can read all about Florida Citizens new Everglades Re II Ltd. (Series 2020-2) catastrophe bond and every cat bond Citizens has ever sponsored in the Artemis Deal Directory.