Orion180, Headquartered in Florida, Now Approved to Do Business in the State

Another insurance firm is expanding into Florida, the state in which it has had its headquarters for several years.

Orion180, founded in 2016, with corporate offices in Melbourne, Florida, has been approved by state regulators as a property and casualty carrier, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced Tuesday.

“Today’s announcement marks the third and fourth property and casualty insurers approved to operate in Florida following legislative reforms designed to promote market stability,” Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky’s office said in a bulletin.

Last week, OIR said it had approved Mainsail Insurance Co., a sister firm to Hippo Insurance and Spinnaker Insurance companies, to operate in the state. That followed the approval of Tailrow Insurance Co., part of HCI Group.

Recoop Disaster Insurance, underwritten by Professional Solutions Insurance, also announced it will offer a parametric-type product in Florida and is seeking approval from regulators.

Orion180 will operate as two insurers in Florida: Orion180 Insurance Co. and Orion180 Select Insurance Co. Both are domiciled in Indiana and applied to operate in Florida under an expansion application, OIR said.

The move allows companies to expand into several states, using a uniform certificate of authority application, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners explained. While each “uniform” state will perform its own review of the application, the applicant company does not need to file different applications in different formats.

CEO Ken Gregg said Wednesday that the Florida legislative reforms, which limited costly claims litigation and what many said were frivolous lawsuits and exaggerated roof claims, have indeed had an impact on Orion’s decision.

“I’ve always wanted to do business in Florida but we knew we had to wait for the environment to be right,” he said in an interview with Insurance Journal. “I think the reforms and what the state has done and what the department is doing have made it so the time is right.”

The carriers aren’t being shy about taking on risk in storm-plagued Florida, he said. The companies plan to write homeowners’ policies in “true coastal areas,” on the state’s east and west coasts, Gregg said. Those will include some high-end properties, with Coverage A limits above $700,000 — picking up where the state-created Citizens Property Insurance is limited by law.

Commercial policies may come later, he added.

Gregg, who was previously with CNA Insurance and Allianz, launched Orion180 as a tech-heavy company in 2018. In press releases and company information in the past year, the firm has noted that it transitioned from a managing general underwriter to a standalone carrier with the launch of Orion180 Insurance Co.

Late last year, the company said it was expanding into Georgia and South Carolina, after operating in North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Orion180 has said it has more than 80,000 policies issued, with written premium of $150 million in 2022. It now works with about 8,000 agents.

A year ago, Orion was approved to build a six-story, $50 million office complex in Melbourne, with part of the site providing retail space and apartments, according to news reports. But the project never got off the ground after the developer was unable to obtain proper financing and make the numbers work, Gregg said. Orion180 now plans to find another office site by next summer, he noted.

The KBRA financial rating firm in June gave Orion180 Insurance Co. a BBB+ financial strength rating, with a stable outlook.

“The rating is positively impacted by the experienced management team, favorable projected capitalization levels, a business plan benefitting from an existing MGA book with good historical loss experience, minimal legacy issues, and reasonable start-up expenses,” the KBRA report noted. “These positive factors are offset by exposure to event risk and reinsurance dependence, product and geographic concentration, and some execution risk as a start-up insurer.”

Policyholder surplus for this year was just over $50 million, a big jump from the previous year. Orion180 Insurance also reported an $807,000 net loss in 2022, but its profit was expected to rise to more than $1.6 million by 2025, KBRA noted. On a consolidated basis, Orion has been profitable since 2019, a company official said.

“KBRA believes that Orion’s transition from using a fronting provider to an underwriter writing on its own paper, allows
for a reasonable market opportunity to successfully execute their business plan,” the rating firm wrote. “However, management must remain disciplined, as they are not bound by the underwriting constraints of a fronting provider.”

Orion180 is not rated by AM Best but Orion180 Insurance and Orion180 Select both received an “A Excellent” financial stability rating from Demotech at the end of July.

The company plans to continue expanding, probably into some Midwestern states in coming months, Gregg said.

This article has been updated to include new information from Orion180.