Florida Insurer Closing its Doors

A Florida insurance company is on its way to closing its door as it informed agents it is going to start dropping policyholders when their policies are up for renewal.

Argus Fire & Casualty, a subsidiary of the Miami Gardens-based United Automobile Insurance Co., has roughly 15,000 policies in force. The insurer has been under regulatory review since last year. Regulators agreed to let the insurer go into run-off mode as opposed to be taken by the state.

A.M. Best indicated the insurer was having problems as far back as 2008 and it lost its Demotech rating in March 2010. Last year, regulators allowed Argus to move 4,000 policies it had taken from the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. back into the state-run insurer.