Your Citizens Takeout Offer, Explained
A Citizens takeout offer means a private carrier reviewed your policy and won state approval to take it on — the letter is Florida’s depopulation program working the way it was designed to, and envelopes like yours go out ahead of every assumption round. You have real choices and one real deadline, both printed on your Offer Form. This page walks through what the letter says, what each choice sets in motion, and how — working with your agent — one entry compares the offer against 20+ Florida homeowners carriers before the window closes.
Your takeout letter at a glance
Check your specific offer letter for your dates and choices.
Why these letters exist
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is the state-created insurer Florida law positions as its market of last resort — and the same law directs it to move policies back to private carriers whenever private carriers ask to take them. That process is called depopulation, and your letter is one of its working parts: a private insurer studied Citizens’ book, identified policies that fit its underwriting, and petitioned the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation for approval to assume them.
The scale of the program tells you how normal your envelope is. Citizens’ policy count peaked around 1.41 million in October 2023, when it was the largest property insurer in Florida. By the end of July 2026, its published count stood at 278,196 — roughly 80 percent below that peak. In 2025 alone, Citizens’ depopulation statistics record 585,432 policies assumed by private carriers, with the largest single round moving nearly 200,000 policies on a single day in October 2025. Citizens itself has said it is “no longer the largest property insurer in the state.”
Read against that backdrop, your letter means something specific: at least one private carrier — sometimes several — reviewed your policy’s facts and selected it to compete for. Selection is data, not a grade; each takeout carrier files its own criteria, and your policy matched the book that company set out to build. The letter isn’t a problem notice and it isn’t a bill. It’s a set of options with a date attached, and the rest of this page walks through them.
The timeline, step by step
Every assumption round runs on the same published sequence. Here it is from the policyholder’s side:
- About three months out — the consent order. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation issues a consent order approving a carrier’s request to assume policies — the legal step that sets a round in motion. One reading note: approved totals are ceilings on what a carrier may assume, and OIR’s own summaries caution that they are not counts of policies actually removed.
- About seven weeks out — the packet. Citizens mails the Policyholder Choice letter: every carrier that selected your policy, each one’s estimated renewal premium, Citizens’ own estimated renewal premium for the same period, and worksheets comparing the coverage. Your agent receives the same offer data, so the side-by-side can start the day the letter lands.
- The choice window. Your decision registers with Citizens by the date on your Offer Form — your agent can enter it, or you can submit it through Citizens’ online choice tool. If you’re eligible to remain with Citizens and choose to, Citizens sends a confirmation notice saying so.
- Assumption day. Policies whose registered choice went to a takeout carrier transfer that day — along with policies that registered no choice, which Citizens assigns to a selecting carrier. The new company takes over service of the policy, and a Certificate of Assumption documents the change.
- After assumption — final. Citizens states plainly that the 30-day period that once let assumed policyholders return to Citizens no longer exists. An assumption is final; the route back is a brand-new Citizens application, judged under whatever eligibility rules are in force when you apply — including the 20% comparison against the private offers available to you then.
How to read the offer the way an agent reads it
Four mechanics decide what the numbers on your letter mean.
- The 20% rule decides your eligibility. Compare each offer’s estimated premium to Citizens’ estimated renewal premium — both are printed in your packet. Under the December 2022 reforms (Senate Bill 2-A; s. 627.351(6), Florida Statutes), an offer that lands within 20% of the Citizens figure makes you ineligible to remain with Citizens. An offer more than 20% above it leaves remaining with Citizens on your list of choices.
- The 40% cap bounds every offer. The consent orders cap a takeout offer at 40% above Citizens’ estimated renewal premium. Every offer on your letter therefore sits between those rails — and which side of the 20% line each one lands on is the first thing to check.
- Comparable coverage is required. OIR’s orders require an offering policy to be comparable in coverage to your Citizens policy, and comparability can’t be established through optional endorsements — the base policy itself has to compare.
- Estimates are estimates. The premiums on the letter are estimated renewal premiums; the actual number arrives at your first renewal with the new carrier, at rates it has filed with or had approved by OIR. And when the offering carrier is a reciprocal exchange — an insurer owned by its policyholder-members — the estimate includes a surplus contribution, set at 10% of premium in these orders, which the order requires the carrier to explain. Plain English: it’s a member contribution that becomes part of the exchange’s surplus, the capital that stands behind members’ claims, and it’s already built into the printed estimate.
None of that math has to be done alone. Working with your agent, lay the offers side by side — same coverage lines, same deductibles, same rebuild limit — and check each one against the rest of the market while the window is open.
The carriers on your letter — and why the names may be new
Across the 2025 and 2026 rounds, the active participants have included Slide, Manatee, American Integrity, Southern Oak, Florida Peninsula, Mangrove, Praxis, Apex Star, One Alliance, and Patriot Select. Some have written Florida homes for years. Several were licensed in the years after the 2022–23 reforms to write homes here — Praxis, for example, entered in 2025 as the seventeenth new insurer the state counted since those reforms began. And one company on the list is a familiar carrier under a new name: Universal North America became One Alliance.
Not recognizing a name on the letter is the normal experience of this program. Every takeout carrier operates under a consent order from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation — the state reviewed its request and approved it to assume policies — and every one carries a financial strength rating you can verify — who issues its rating, what the grade is, and the date it was affirmed. Our guide to Florida home insurance financial strength ratings explains the agencies doing that grading, and those answers are worth having in hand before you weigh any offer.
A license date tells you when a carrier arrived, not how its offer fits your home — that question is answered the same way for a company founded three years ago or fifty: put its estimated premium, its coverage form, and its rating beside the rest of the market. Assumption rounds continue through the year on a calendar Citizens publishes, so letters like yours go out in waves — and comparing them is routine work for an independent Florida agency.
Assessments — and the honest case in both directions
Citizens’ own depopulation materials make one structural argument for the private market: every Citizens policyholder is exposed to assessments — additional charges that can follow severe hurricane losses — while private-market policyholders carry a far smaller assessment exposure. That is Citizens describing its own product, and it belongs in the comparison.
Here is the other side, stated just as plainly: when the 20% rule leaves you eligible to remain, staying with Citizens is a legitimate choice. Some households weigh the assessment exposure most heavily; others weigh the premium difference, a carrier’s coverage forms and deductible options, or its financial ratings. The statute decides your eligibility — your facts decide your preference. Neither direction is the right answer for every household, and the useful step is the same in both: put all the numbers side by side before the date on your Offer Form.
What an independent comparison adds to the packet
By design, the packet prices one set of options: the carriers that selected your policy, next to Citizens’ own estimated renewal. An independent comparison adds the rest of the market. One entry with us returns quotes from 20+ Florida homeowners carriers, so the selecting carriers’ numbers land beside everyone else’s — and the decision gets made with all the numbers, not just the ones in the envelope.
Two things make that fast. The first is Canopy Connect, a secure link that shares your current policy details with us directly, so nothing gets typed twice and the side-by-side starts from the coverage you really carry. The second is time: the choice window is fixed by your Offer Form date, so the earlier the letter reaches us, the more of that window goes to comparing. Bring the letter early — working with your agent, the comparison runs inside the window the letter sets.
Wherever the letter finds you
The packet just arrived
Read the Offer Form date first — it anchors everything else on the page. Then send the letter our way early: the comparison is most useful with the whole window still ahead of it.
The deadline is close
The window is open until the date on the form — call or text 813.920.8181 with the letter in hand. A licensed Florida agent reads the offers with you, checks the 20% math, and registers the choice you land on before the Offer Form date passes.
The assumption already happened
Your policy runs to its normal expiration with the new carrier, and the consent orders bar retroactive mid-term changes to its rates or coverage. The natural checkpoint is your first renewal with that carrier — put it beside 20+ Florida homeowners carriers and see where your home prices, the same as any renewal.
Citizens takeout offers: your questions, answered
What is a Citizens takeout offer, and why did my policy get one?
A takeout offer is part of depopulation — the process Florida law built into Citizens for returning policies to private carriers. A private insurer reviewed Citizens’ book, selected policies that fit its underwriting criteria, and received approval from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to assume them. Your policy received a letter because at least one carrier selected it — a match between your policy’s facts and the book that company set out to build. Citizens mails the Policyholder Choice letter about seven weeks before the assumption date, listing every offer and its estimated renewal premium alongside Citizens’ own.
Do I have to accept a Citizens takeout offer?
You always have the right to register a choice — the honest part is that the offer’s price decides which choices are open. Under s. 627.351(6), Florida Statutes — the Senate Bill 2-A reforms of December 2022 — an offer within 20% of your Citizens estimated renewal premium makes you ineligible to remain with Citizens. If every offer on your letter runs more than 20% above the Citizens figure, remaining with Citizens stays available, and choosing it brings a confirmation notice. Either way, the decision registers by the date on your Offer Form — working with your agent, compare before that date, not after it.
What happens if I ignore the letter?
If no choice is registered by the Offer Form date, Citizens assigns the policy to a takeout company that selected it — and when several selected it, the assignment goes to the one with the lowest estimated premium, per Citizens’ published depopulation materials. The policy itself doesn’t lapse: it transfers on assumption day and runs to its normal expiration, and the consent orders bar retroactive mid-term changes to its rates or coverage. Registering a choice — in either direction — keeps the decision yours.
Can I go back to Citizens later if I change my mind?
Not by undoing the assumption. Citizens states that the 30-day period that once let assumed policyholders return no longer exists — an assumption is final. The route back is a brand-new Citizens application, evaluated under whatever eligibility rules apply when you submit it, including the 20% comparison against the private-market offers available to you at that time. That finality is the practical reason the choice window matters: it is the one moment when every option is on the table at once.
Will my premium or coverage change when my policy is assumed?
Not mid-term. The assumed policy runs to its normal expiration, and OIR’s consent orders bar the assuming carrier from retroactive changes to its rates or coverage during that term. At renewal, the orders require the carrier to offer substantially equivalent coverage, at rates it has filed with or had approved by the regulator. One line worth asking about: when the assuming carrier is a reciprocal exchange, the estimated renewal premium includes a surplus contribution — set at 10% of premium — that the orders require the carrier to explain. It is a member contribution to the exchange’s claims-paying surplus, and knowing it is in the number makes the renewal easier to read.
Who are these companies I’ve never heard of?
Across the 2025 and 2026 rounds, the active takeout participants have included Slide, Manatee, American Integrity, Southern Oak, Florida Peninsula, Mangrove, Praxis, Apex Star, One Alliance, and Patriot Select. If several of those names are new to you, that’s typical — a number of them were licensed after Florida’s 2022–23 reforms to write homes here, and One Alliance is the renamed Universal North America. Each operates under a consent order from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approving its assumption request, and each carries a financial strength rating you can verify — the rating agency, the grade, and the affirmation date. Those are questions we answer with you, carrier by carrier, as part of the comparison.
What is the 40% cap on takeout offers?
The consent orders cap a takeout offer’s estimated premium at 40% above Citizens’ estimated renewal premium, and they require the offered policy to be comparable in coverage — comparability that can’t be established through optional endorsements. So the offers on your letter sit inside a regulated band: comparable coverage, priced no more than 40% above the Citizens figure. The 20% threshold then does the sorting — within it, you’re ineligible to remain with Citizens; when every offer is above it, staying remains one of your choices.
Does my flood coverage change with a takeout?
The assumption itself doesn’t change your flood policy. Flood is a separate policy with its own carrier — through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood market — and it stays where it is when your home policy transfers. Citizens wind-only policies go through their own assumption rounds under the same choice process. Worth pairing with the moment: every Florida home needs some amount of flood coverage — how much is the question — and flood pricing turns on the property itself: distance to a flooding source, rebuild cost, and elevation. Since your home policy is already on the table, pricing flood beside it costs nothing.
