American Traditions Insurance in Florida
The Jerger family has worked Florida insurance from Pinellas County since 1946 — four generations of it — and the insurer the family built, American Traditions Insurance, has been writing Florida policies from Pinellas Park since the first day of 2006. What grew from that start is a distinction no other private carrier in the state holds: Florida’s largest private-market mobile-home book, with site-built homeowners, landlord, condo, and renters lines beside it. Here’s the family story, the ratings, the coverage, and the way to see an American Traditions quote — 20+ other Florida homeowners carriers around it — before you settle on anyone.
American Traditions at a glance
Carrier ratings verified directly with each rating agency.
A Pinellas County family business since 1946 — and the insurer it built in 2006
American Traditions is a family operation in the plainest sense. The Jergers have worked Florida insurance from Pinellas County since 1946 — four generations in the same county — and the insurer that history eventually produced is easy to date precisely: American Traditions Insurance Company, incorporated in 2005, writing Florida policies since the first day of January 2006, headquartered in Pinellas Park.
The ownership matches the name on the door. American Traditions is held through the family’s own holding company — privately owned from the start — with T. John Jerger Jr. as President and CEO, Thomas J. Jerger as Chairman, and family members working throughout the operation. Even the distribution arm is the family’s: policies reach the market through independent agents across the state via T.J. Jerger MGA, the managing general agency the family runs — the same arrangement the company opened with in 2006.
The company’s own words for its philosophy are “slow and steady growth,” and the capital record backs the phrase. When the book has needed capital, the family has put it in: a surplus note through a U.S. Small Business Administration capital-building program in 2007, most of it since repaid; a further surplus note from the family MGA in 2023; a direct contribution from the holding company in early 2024. Policyholder surplus ended 2023 higher than it stood in 2018 — growth straight through the Irma and Ian years — and 2023 closed with positive net income, no small statement in the first full year after Hurricane Ian.
Two housekeeping facts complete the history: Modern USA Insurance, another Florida carrier, merged into American Traditions in 2018, with American Traditions the continuing company — and the renters line joined the shelf that same year.
Florida’s largest private-market mobile-home insurer
Manufactured homes are the line American Traditions started with in 2006 — and the line where it now stands alone among Florida’s private carriers: more than 66,000 mobile-homeowners policies in force, roughly 23% of all the manufactured-home policies in the state, the largest private-market mobile-home book in Florida (Florida OIR data, May 2026).
No other private carrier’s manufactured-home book comes close to that count, and the scale shows up in practical ways for the person insured: pricing built on two decades of the company’s own Florida manufactured-home results, underwriting that treats these homes as the core business rather than a sideline, and claims teams for whom a manufactured-home loss is the everyday file. The program itself — coverages, options, discounts — gets its own section below.
Size earns the quote; it doesn’t end the comparison. Manufactured-home pricing still varies carrier to carrier, which is why — working with your agent — the American Traditions number lands beside the rest of the market before anything gets decided.
When another mobile-home insurer failed — the American Mobile story
In early 2024, a startup mobile-home insurer called American Mobile Insurance Exchange failed, leaving the households it covered needing somewhere for their policies to land. The landing the state approved ran through American Traditions.
Under an agreement approved by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, American Traditions assumed American Mobile’s policies effective 12:01 a.m. on April 1, 2024, with no lapse in coverage — the same coverage, at the same premium, with existing payment plans honored. Policyholders went to sleep insured by a failed company and woke up insured by Florida’s largest private-market mobile-home carrier, with nothing to apply for and nothing about their policy changed.
For a homeowner sizing up the company, the episode speaks for itself: when the state needed a mobile-home specialist able to take on a failed insurer’s policies overnight, it approved American Traditions to do it.
How American Traditions is rated — two agencies, both checkable
American Traditions carries grades from two rating agencies, and either one can be checked at its source:
- Demotech: Financial Stability Rating of A (Exceptional), affirmed June 2026 — a strong grade from the agency that reviews most of this state’s specialist homeowners market.
- KBRA: BBB insurance financial strength, Stable outlook — investment grade, first assigned in 2022. KBRA’s commentary credits, among other strengths, the experience of the management team and the company’s strong local presence and agency network.
Holding both puts American Traditions in the smaller group of Florida specialists rated by two agencies at once. Behind the grades sits a reinsurance posture the company states in one sentence — “in any given storm our retention is less than 10% of our surplus” — with its program placed among private reinsurers and the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.
There’s no AM Best rating in the file, and a Florida shopper should read that as ordinary: Demotech has graded this state’s specialist homeowners market for decades, KBRA has become its established second voice, and a Florida-concentrated book is the very thing both agencies’ methods are built to evaluate. The homework is the same wherever a carrier is graded — name the agency, the grade, and the affirmation date — and those three answers accompany every carrier on a quote we build with you. Our guide to Florida home insurance financial strength ratings maps all three agencies in detail.
American Traditions is an admitted Florida carrier, which places its policyholders inside the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association — the protection state law constructs beneath every admitted insurer’s policyholders.
More than mobile homes: what American Traditions writes
The manufactured-home crown sits on a broader book — 140,000+ policies in force, broad enough to rank #17 among all Florida residential insurers (Florida OIR data, May 2026):
- Mobile and manufactured home — the founding line and the flagship, detailed in the next section.
- Homeowners (HO-3) — more than 43,000 site-built homeowners policies, a substantial Florida book in its own right.
- Dwelling-fire and landlord (DP) — more than 22,000 policies for rentals and other dwelling situations.
- Condo unit-owners (HO-6) and renters (HO-4) — condo for unit owners, plus a renters line added in 2018.
- Flood — always its own policy — offered through the company’s Flex Flood option and the National Flood Insurance Program, never folded into the home policy itself.
About that last line: every Florida home, manufactured or site-built, has a genuine flood decision to make, and the decision is how much coverage — not whether any belongs. What flood costs turns mostly on the property itself: how close the home sits to a source of flooding, what rebuilding it would cost, and how high it stands. We price flood next to the home quote, so both answers arrive in the same conversation.
Inside the manufactured-home program
Here is what an American Traditions manufactured-home policy is built around, from the company’s published materials — with two honest boundaries: every coverage runs subject to the policy’s own terms, and which homes fit the program is a question answered at quote time, for your specific home.
- The home and what’s attached to it. Coverage for the structure, with scheduled coverage for the attachments Florida manufactured homes carry — carports, sheds, screen rooms — so the pieces built on beside the home are named in the policy rather than assumed.
- Contents, loss of use, and liability. Coverage for what’s inside, the living-elsewhere help a policy is designed to provide after a covered loss, and personal liability — each per the policy’s terms.
- Occupancy options. Rental and dwelling versions exist for qualifying occupancies, so a home that’s rented out — where it qualifies — is written on the form that matches how it’s used.
- Wind-mitigation credits. The state’s OIR-B1-1802 wind-mitigation inspection documents the features that earn credits, and a completed report stays valid for five years — paperwork that’s worth real money at quote time and keeps earning after it.
- The roof-payment-schedule choice. Accepting the RSPS endorsement earns a premium discount between 9.5% and 15%; in exchange, roof losses from windstorm or hail settle on a schedule tied to the roof’s age and type instead of at full replacement cost. It applies to windstorm and hail losses only, its exact mechanics live in the policy’s terms, and it’s a trade to price both ways — working with your agent, the quote with and without it takes minutes to compare.
- Smaller levers. An e-delivery discount for paperless documents, and payment plans that split the premium into one, two, three, or four payments.
One more option exists at the edge of the program, and it deserves careful words. More than 1,500 American Traditions manufactured-home policies are written without windstorm coverage. Florida law includes windstorm on a mobile-home policy unless every named insured signs an opt-out, and eligibility for the ex-wind route is gated — it’s an option the company makes available where it fits, not a recommendation, and we treat it the same way. For the small set of owners who choose it — typically where no lender requires wind coverage and the premium math is the whole point — the honest path is seeing both quotes side by side, working with your agent, and deciding outside storm season, since carriers pause coverage changes while a storm approaches. Going without wind changes nothing about flood, which is its own policy either way.
After a policy is issued, expect an inspection — a normal part of how the company writes, not a review triggered by anything about you. Most happen two to six weeks in, and a 30-minute self-guided digital option lets you complete yours from your phone, on your own schedule.
The rate picture — and what moves a renewal
American Traditions files rate updates with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation regularly across its homeowners, mobile-home, and dwelling-fire programs — the maintenance rhythm of an admitted carrier keeping its products current. You won’t find percentage claims on this page, because a filed statewide average describes a whole book of business, and the number that matters to you is the one on your own quote.
When a renewal moves, it moves for reasons that can be named: the rebuild limit on the declarations page adjusts with construction costs, the documented age of the roof advances, an insurance score changes, endorsements come on or off — and every carrier sets its own weights on those inputs. Our guide to why Florida home insurance premiums move covers the full list, and working with your agent, a renewal check matches those inputs against the discounts above — and against how the same home prices across 20+ other Florida homeowners carriers.
American Traditions and Citizens takeouts
American Traditions took part in Citizens depopulation — the program Florida law uses to return policies from Citizens, the state’s insurer of last resort, to private carriers — during the 2023–24 rounds, assuming about 5,800 policies across two state-approved rounds. Participation is decided round by round, and the makeup of each round changes with it; the 2025 and 2026 rounds ran without American Traditions on the list.
If your Citizens policy was assumed by American Traditions in those rounds, it renews like any other policy on this page — worth an annual look beside the rest of the market. And if a takeout letter is what brought you here, the mechanics — the deadline on the Offer Form, the 20% eligibility rule, what happens when no choice is registered — are walked through in our guide to Citizens takeout offers, and a licensed Florida agent can run the comparison inside the letter’s own window.
Two ways to use this page
Already an American Traditions policyholder?
Then you’re with a rated, family-run carrier that leads its signature line — and if yours is one of the 66,000+ manufactured-home policies, this page was practically written for you: the wind-mitigation report, the roof-payment-schedule choice, and the e-delivery and payment options above are all levers worth confirming on your own policy. Share the policy through Canopy Connect — a secure link that delivers your declarations page to us directly, nothing retyped — and working with your agent, confirm every credit is present and see how the rest of the market reads the same home.
Shopping and seeing American Traditions quoted?
On a manufactured home, expect it — the largest private-market book in the state shows up in most serious comparisons — and on a site-built home, its 43,000-policy HO-3 book earns it a place on plenty of quote sheets too. What one carrier’s quote can’t show you is the field around it: one entry with us returns American Traditions’ price with 20+ other Florida homeowners carriers around it, every number built from the same coverage answers, and a licensed Florida agent to talk through which differences matter for your home.
American Traditions Insurance: your questions, answered
Who owns American Traditions Insurance?
The Jerger family — the same family that has worked Florida insurance from Pinellas County since 1946, four generations of it. The insurer itself is younger and precisely dated: American Traditions Insurance Company was incorporated in 2005 and has written Florida policies since January 2006, from Pinellas Park, held through the family’s own holding company with T. John Jerger Jr. as President and CEO. The company’s stated philosophy is “slow and steady growth,” and the family has backed the book with its own capital along the way.
Is American Traditions the largest mobile-home insurer in Florida?
It is Florida’s largest private-market mobile-home insurer by policies in force — more than 66,000 manufactured-home policies, roughly 23% of all the manufactured-home policies in the state, per Florida OIR data from May 2026. The private-market qualifier is there for honesty: Citizens, the state-created insurer of last resort, holds a comparable manufactured-home count across its accounts. Among private carriers, though, no other book comes close to American Traditions’ — the line the company started with in 2006.
Does American Traditions only write mobile-home insurance?
No — the manufactured-home book is the headline, not the whole company. Florida OIR data (May 2026) shows more than 43,000 site-built homeowners (HO-3) policies, more than 22,000 dwelling-fire and landlord policies, plus condo and renters lines — 140,000+ policies in force altogether, the #17 residential insurer statewide. If you own a site-built home, an American Traditions quote can sit in your comparison the same as any other Florida carrier’s.
What financial ratings does American Traditions have?
Two: a Financial Stability Rating of A (Exceptional) from Demotech, affirmed June 2026, and an investment-grade BBB with a Stable outlook from KBRA, first assigned in 2022 — KBRA’s commentary credits the management team’s experience and the company’s strong local presence and agency network. There is no AM Best rating, which is the usual arrangement for Florida’s specialist carriers; Demotech and KBRA are the agencies whose methods are built for single-state books like this one. And because American Traditions is an admitted Florida carrier, its policyholders sit inside the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association’s protection as well.
I got a Citizens takeout letter naming American Traditions — what does it mean?
A takeout letter means a private carrier won state approval to assume Citizens policies and selected yours. American Traditions’ participation came in the 2023–24 rounds — about 5,800 policies assumed across two rounds approved by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Whatever carrier’s name is on such a letter, the mechanics are the same: there’s a choice, a deadline printed on the Offer Form, and a 20% pricing rule that decides whether staying with Citizens remains available. Our guide to Citizens takeout offers walks through every step — and working with your agent, the offer gets compared against the wider market inside the letter’s window.
What happened to American Mobile Insurance Exchange policyholders?
American Mobile Insurance Exchange, a startup mobile-home insurer, failed in early 2024 — and its policyholders landed without a gap. Under an agreement approved by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, American Traditions assumed those policies effective 12:01 a.m. on April 1, 2024, with no lapse in coverage: the same coverage, the same premium, and existing payment plans honored. If your policy came to American Traditions that way, it has simply been an American Traditions policy since that date, renewing on the company’s filed rates like any other.
Can I exclude wind coverage on a Florida mobile-home policy?
Florida law includes windstorm coverage on a mobile-home policy unless every named insured signs an opt-out, and American Traditions writes an ex-wind option where eligibility allows — more than 1,500 of its manufactured-home policies are in force without wind. Treat it as exactly that: an option, not a recommendation. It tends to fit a narrow situation — typically no lender requiring wind coverage, and premium math the owner has looked at squarely — and it’s a decision to make outside storm season, since carriers pause coverage changes while a storm approaches. Working with your agent, the with-wind and ex-wind quotes belong side by side before anything gets signed. Flood is unaffected either way — it’s a separate policy.
How do I file an American Traditions claim?
The company’s claims line, 866-270-8430, answers around the clock. The agency’s role comes before the storm does: call or text 813.920.8181 to talk deductibles, coverage, and what the policy is designed to do — the questions best answered while the claim line is something you’ve never needed. Every claim answer ultimately lives in the policy’s own terms — so walking through yours with your agent belongs at the start of any claim.
