Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp. Personal Lines Division Back to Accepting New Applications; Fla. Targeted Market

Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp. on Wednesday announced that its personal lines division, Liberty American Insurance Group, has resumed accepting new insurance applications for its homeowners, condominium and rental dwelling products.

Liberty American Insurance Group suspended accepting all new business applications on Aug. 12, 2004 due to Hurricane Charley, and this suspension had been maintained in order to focus efforts on managing hurricane exposures and settling more than 50,000 claims received as a result of the four 2004 Florida hurricanes. To date, settlement payments have been issued for approximately 95 percent of these claims and the division is now directing its efforts to new business applications.

The target market for these homeowners, condominium, and rental dwelling products is newer constructed homes in Florida. The division also has plans this year to expand their writings of these products in states other than Florida through its subsidiary company, Mobile USA Insurance Company.

Additionally, the division is in the process of reducing its hurricane exposures through non-renewing a portion of its mobile home book of business and not accepting new business for this product line.

The company also announced that a restructured inter-company reinsurance and pooling agreement between Liberty American Insurance Company and Mobile USA Insurance Company, collectively known as Liberty American Insurance Group, has successfully been completed. This separate Florida pool received an initial A.M. Best, Inc. rating of A- (Excellent).

P. Daniel Eldridge, president and CEO of Liberty American Insurance Group, noted, “I am extremely proud of our employees and agents who have worked diligently to serve our policyholders during challenging times. We are now poised to expand our franchise in Florida and beyond.”