Southern Oak Insurance in Florida
Southern Oak Insurance entered Florida about ten weeks after the fourth hurricane of the 2004 season — a homegrown company opening its book in the very market national carriers were pulling away from. It has stayed what it started as: privately held by Florida residents, led by its founder, and licensed by charter in one state — this one. Here is the public record on the company — its rating, what it writes, its two-era Citizens takeout history — and how to see its quote beside 20+ other Florida homeowners carriers while the decision is still open.
Southern Oak at a glance
Carrier ratings verified directly with each rating agency.
Founded ten weeks after the four-hurricane season of 2004
Florida’s 2004 hurricane season put four storms across the state — Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. About ten weeks after the last of them, a brand-new insurer was chartered here: Southern Oak, incorporated on November 30, 2004, and writing business the next day, entering Florida in the same stretch when much of the national industry was heading out. It has kept the same shape ever since — privately held, founder-run, and licensed in Florida alone.
The headquarters sits in the Jacksonville area, in Ponte Vedra Beach, and the company is still led by the man who set it up: Tony A. Loughman, a Jacksonville-raised chartered property casualty underwriter (CPCU) who founded Southern Oak in 2004 and has served as its President and CEO for the twenty-one-plus years since. The company is privately held — there is no stock ticker to look up — and in its own words it is wholly owned and operated by Florida residents.
Florida-only is written into the company’s structure, not just its marketing: the state’s examination report records Southern Oak as licensed exclusively in Florida, by charter. And the single-state book carries real weight. Florida OIR market data (May 2026) counts more than 147,000 policies in force — the fifteenth-largest residential book in the state — representing about $432 million of in-force premium and roughly $83 billion of insured Florida property, sold through independent agents statewide.
A bench built inside Florida’s insurance institutions
Who runs a Florida carrier deserves a homeowner’s attention, because experienced hands are a real part of what keeps a company steady through storm cycles. Southern Oak’s senior bench has an unusual through-line: several of its leaders learned this market from inside the state’s own insurance institutions.
Start with operations. Steve Bitar, Southern Oak’s chief operating officer, came to the company after seventeen years inside Citizens Property Insurance — the state-run insurer whose policies Southern Oak assumes in takeout rounds. That means the executive running day-to-day operations at a takeout carrier spent seventeen years inside the institution the takeouts come from: he knows how Citizens policies are underwritten and serviced because underwriting and servicing them was his work. When Southern Oak selects a Citizens policy to assume, the selection is informed from the inside.
The finance chair reaches back even further. Dan Kutzer, vice president of finance since the company’s first day, was previously Treasurer of the Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association — the state wind pool Florida operated before Citizens existed. Compliance carries the same fingerprint: Julie Wild, chief compliance officer since inception, spent her earlier career auditing insurers for the state.
A Citizens operations veteran, a wind-pool treasurer, and a former state auditor, all reporting to a founder still in the building — keep that bench in mind as you read the next section, because the record it produced is on the state’s own paper.
What the owners did when the storms came
“Privately held” can be an opaque phrase, so here is what it looked like at Southern Oak during the hardest years, drawn from the state’s financial examination: between 2018 and 2022 — a span that included Hurricane Michael and ended with Hurricane Ian — the owners put $12 million of new capital into the company and took zero dividends out. The record also shows no surplus notes, meaning borrowed capital, at any point in the company’s history. Skin in the game — verified in examination, not self-reported.
The storm test came in 2022. Hurricane Ian made that one of the costliest catastrophe years Florida has recorded, and Southern Oak closed its books on it with a net underwriting gain and positive net income — a Florida-only homeowners insurer, no other states to lean on, finishing Ian’s year in the black on underwriting.
The examinations frame the whole period. The state’s most recent financial examination of Southern Oak closed with no significant findings — and so did the one before it. Two consecutive exams without significant findings, covering the very years the storms tested hardest.
The reinsurance description in that examination matters just as much, because reinsurance is where a Florida carrier’s storm math lives. Southern Oak’s program is brokered through Guy Carpenter — one of the world’s principal reinsurance brokers — placed with private reinsurers alongside the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, fully placed, and structured consistently since 2018. One detail the regulator records is worth underlining: no affiliated reinsurers. Every layer of storm protection is bought at arm’s length from independent companies rather than placed with related entities.
How Southern Oak is rated — quoted in full
Southern Oak carries a Financial Stability Rating of A (Exceptional) from Demotech, affirmed June 2026. We quote ratings in that full form on purpose — agency, grade, affirmation date — because a bare “A-rated” leaves out the two facts that make a rating checkable: who issued it, and how recently they stood behind it.
There is no AM Best rating to report, and in the Florida homeowners market that is the common arrangement rather than a mark against the company: AM Best’s framework grew up around carriers whose business spans dozens of states, while the specialists writing most Florida homes are reviewed by Demotech. Whichever carrier lands on your quote sheet, the homework is identical — name the agency, the grade, and the date — and we hand you those answers for every company we price. Our guide to Florida home insurance financial strength ratings lays out how each rating agency approaches Florida carriers, so the grades mean something when you read them.
Southern Oak is an admitted Florida carrier, and admitted status carries a statutory companion: the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association — the fund state law maintains behind admitted insurers — stands with its policyholders too.
What Southern Oak writes in Florida
The state’s May 2026 market data breaks the company’s book down by policy type, so this is the shelf with its real weights attached:
- Homeowners (HO-3) — the center of the book: roughly 110,000 owner-occupied home policies, about three of every four the company holds.
- Wind-only — more than 10,000 stand-alone wind policies on homes, plus nearly 1,000 on condo units, for owners who carry the wind peril on its own policy.
- Dwelling-fire (DP) — about 12,000 policies, the form family behind most Florida landlord coverage.
- Condo unit-owners (HO-6) — about 9,500 policies for the unit itself and its contents, with the master-policy boundary questions worth walking through on any condo quote.
- Renters (HO-4) — about 1,500 policies.
- Mobile and manufactured home — nearly 3,900 policies in force.
The options list runs long for a specialist: replacement cost on contents, scheduled personal property, screened-enclosure coverage, identity theft, animal liability, golf cart, and sewer backup among them. Sinkhole coverage is offered as an option as well, and it deserves precise framing: every admitted Florida homeowners policy already includes catastrophic ground cover collapse coverage by law, and the separate optional sinkhole endorsement is the broader purchase on top — a know-your-risk decision, and one worth an informed conversation before you decide.
Flood is written two ways. Southern Oak sells stand-alone NFIP policies, and on eligible homeowners policies it offers its Southern Oak Flood endorsement — which the company describes as putting flood on the home policy with limits above the NFIP’s $250,000 building cap, additional living expense coverage, and no 30-day waiting period. However it gets placed, the Florida flood question is how much coverage, never whether to carry any — every Florida home needs some — and the premium turns on the property itself: distance to a flooding source, construction and rebuild cost, and elevation. Pricing flood beside the home policy is part of how we quote, so both answers land at once.
On discounts, one mechanism is worth knowing before any inspection gets scheduled: Southern Oak applies wind-mitigation credit automatically to homes built to the 2002 Florida Building Code or later — the construction standard itself earns the credit, no inspection required. Homes built earlier collect theirs by documenting wind-resistant features through a wind-mitigation inspection, a report that’s worth real money with this carrier. The one line where wind-mitigation credits don’t apply is mobile home.
A Citizens takeout record with two eras in it
Depopulation — the state-designed process that moves policies out of Citizens and back into private hands — is where Southern Oak’s history stands out. Most participants belong to one era of the program. Southern Oak has worked both.
The first era: the state approved Southern Oak’s first Citizens assumption in January 2012 — up to 10,000 policies — and approved it for further rounds in every year from 2013 through 2017. The second era began after Florida’s legal reforms rebuilt the market: a continuous run of approvals from 2023 through 2026, with 23,945 policies assumed in 2025 — the eighth-largest count among that year’s participating carriers — and state approval to assume up to 50,000 more across the rounds scheduled for October through December 2026.
Read those numbers with the rule that applies to every takeout carrier: an approval is a ceiling. “Up to 50,000” is what the state authorized, not a count of policies moved — the moved count settles later, choice by choice, as policyholders answer their letters. The 23,945, by contrast, is an actual assumed count from Citizens’ published statistics.
Southern Oak’s own depopulation materials make commitments a takeout household will want to know. The company states that customers it assumes keep their existing agent, and that it commits to offering renewal for up to three years after assumption, barring an underwriting violation unrelated to hurricane claims — a direct answer to the question takeout households ask most, which is whether the new carrier plans to keep the policy. It also writes voluntary business statewide, so assumed policies join the same book its voluntary customers are in.
And the paper trail behind all of it is easy to characterize: Southern Oak’s public order file with the state, 2012 through 2026, is a run of takeout approvals. If one of its letters is in your mailbox now, our guide to your Citizens takeout offer walks the timeline, the 20% eligibility rule, and the deadline — and putting the offer beside 20+ Florida homeowners carriers before that deadline is how the letter becomes an informed choice.
Two ways to use this page
Already a Southern Oak policyholder?
Then your carrier is Florida-chartered, exam-tested, and rated — and a yearly review is still the habit that keeps a policy earning everything it should, because credits and home updates count only once they’re written in. If a claim ever comes, file it with Southern Oak directly — (954) 331-4848 or the mySouthernOak portal; the carrier’s claims desk is the right first call. The agency’s lane is everything before that day: coverage, deductibles, and whether the policy still fits the house — call or text 813.920.8181 with those any time. At renewal, the moving parts — the inflation adjustment on your Coverage A rebuild limit, your documented roof age, endorsement changes — are mapped in our guide to why Florida home insurance premiums move. Share your current policy through Canopy Connect — the secure link that delivers your declarations page to us with nothing retyped — and the review starts from the coverage you actually hold.
Shopping and seeing Southern Oak quoted?
Its name on your comparison usually means your home fits the appetite of a top-15 Florida residential insurer — a good starting position. One entry with us finishes the picture: Southern Oak’s quote priced on the same answers as 20+ other Florida homeowners carriers, and a licensed Florida agent walking the differences with you before you choose.
Southern Oak Insurance: your questions, answered
Is Southern Oak a legitimate, stable insurance company?
Yes — and the evidence is the checkable kind. Southern Oak is an admitted Florida carrier writing here since 2004, with a Financial Stability Rating of A (Exceptional) from Demotech, affirmed June 2026, and more than 147,000 policies in force — the state’s 15th-largest residential book per Florida OIR market data (May 2026). The regulator’s own reviews support the picture: the state’s two most recent financial examinations of the company each closed with no significant findings. As an admitted carrier, Southern Oak’s policyholders also have the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association — the statutory fund behind admitted insurers — standing with them.
Who owns Southern Oak Insurance — is it publicly traded?
It is privately held — there is no ticker symbol to look up. The company describes itself as wholly owned and operated by Florida residents, and it has been led since its founding by Tony A. Loughman, the Jacksonville-raised CPCU who started it in 2004 and remains President and CEO twenty-one-plus years on. What that ownership did during the storm years is on the state’s examination record: $12 million of capital added between 2018 and 2022, with zero dividends taken out.
Does Southern Oak write insurance outside Florida?
No. Southern Oak’s charter licenses it exclusively in Florida — a fact recorded in the state’s examination report — and it has operated that way since 2004. The practical meaning for a homeowner is concentration: all of the company’s underwriting judgment, pricing data, reinsurance buying, and claims experience come from the same market your home is in.
Southern Oak selected my Citizens policy for takeout — what should I do?
Start by reading the letter as what it is: the state approved Southern Oak to assume policies from Citizens, and the company selected yours — a supervised process Southern Oak has worked across two eras, with rounds going back to 2012 and 23,945 policies assumed in 2025. Its own depopulation materials add two commitments worth weighing: assumed customers keep their existing agent, and the company commits to offering renewal for up to three years after assumption, barring an underwriting violation unrelated to hurricane claims. Then compare before the deadline printed on the offer — the letter shows you one carrier’s number, and working with your agent, you can see it beside 20+ Florida homeowners carriers and respond knowing where the offer really stands.
Does Southern Oak have an AM Best rating?
No — its rating comes from Demotech: a Financial Stability Rating of A (Exceptional), affirmed June 2026. That is the standard arrangement for Florida homeowners specialists, since AM Best’s framework grew up around multi-state carriers while Demotech reviews most of this market. One tip for careful readers: mentions of AM Best on Southern Oak’s own website refer to its reinsurers — the companies backing its catastrophe program — not to the carrier itself. The useful checklist never changes: name the rating agency, the grade, and the affirmation date, for every carrier you compare.
What does Southern Oak write — and what can be added to a policy?
The book spans homeowners (HO-3) — about three-quarters of its policies — plus condo (HO-6), renters (HO-4), dwelling-fire and landlord forms, mobile home, and stand-alone wind-only policies. Options include replacement cost on contents, scheduled personal property, screened-enclosure coverage, identity theft, animal liability, golf cart, sewer backup, and flood. Sinkhole coverage is optional too, with framing that matters: catastrophic ground cover collapse coverage is already included in every admitted Florida homeowners policy by law, while the separate sinkhole endorsement is a broader optional purchase — a know-your-risk decision worth talking through before you decide.
Does Southern Oak offer flood coverage?
Two ways. It writes stand-alone NFIP flood policies, and on eligible homeowners policies it offers the Southern Oak Flood endorsement — which the company describes as adding flood to the home policy with limits above the NFIP’s $250,000 building cap, additional living expense coverage, and no 30-day waiting period. The sizing question is the one that matters in Florida: every home here needs some amount of flood coverage, the real decision is how much, and the premium follows the property itself — distance to a flooding source, construction and rebuild cost, and elevation. Pricing it beside the home quote settles both at once.
How did Southern Oak hold up through hurricanes like Ian, Helene, and Milton?
On the public record, steadily. In 2022 — the year Hurricane Ian produced one of the costliest catastrophes in Florida’s history — Southern Oak posted a net underwriting gain and positive net income. Its Demotech A (Exceptional) rating was affirmed in June 2026, after the 2024 season that brought Helene and Milton. And the state’s financial examination covering the storm years closed with no significant findings, as did the exam before it. Those are three separate documents pointing the same direction, and each one is checkable.
