Reinsurance Level 1 (Notes)

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2011

Reinsurance [Abstract]

Reinsurance [Text Block]

REINSURANCE

We follow industry practice of reinsuring a portion of our risks. Reinsurance involves transferring, or “ceding”, all or a portion of the risk exposure on policies we write to another insurer, known as a reinsurer. To the extent that our reinsurers are unable to meet the obligations they assume under our reinsurance agreements, we remain liable for the entire insured loss.

Our catastrophe reinsurance agreements provide us coverage against severe weather events. We entered into excess-of-loss agreements with several private reinsurers and with the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. The private agreements provide coverage against severe weather events such as hurricanes, tropical storms and tornadoes. The agreement with the FHCF only provides coverage against storms that the National Hurricane Center designates as a hurricane at landfall.

For the policy year beginning June 1, 2011, we have a private catastrophe reinsurance agreement structured into layers. The coverage provided by one layer picks up, or “attaches”, at the point where coverage under the previous layer ends. Our agreement with the FHCF divides our coverage into three layers: the Limited-Apportionment Company layer, the Mandatory layer and the Temporary-Increase-in-Coverage-Limit layer.

For a single hurricane catastrophe, we have chosen to pay, or “retain”, the first $15,000 of catastrophe losses before our reinsurance contracts provide coverage. For a second catastrophe, we would also retain the first $15,000 of catastrophe losses. Our agreements will reimburse us as much as $500,400 for the first event.

For a single non-hurricane catastrophe, we would retain the first $25,000 of catastrophe losses. For a second non-hurricane catastrophe, we would also retain the first $25,000 of catastrophe losses. Our agreements will reimburse us as much as $129,000 for the first event.

With regard to all of our reinsurance agreements, we retain aggregate catastrophe losses, from all events, exceeding our reinsurance coverage.

Our agreement with the FHCF allows for one reinstatement of coverage provided by the LAC layer should losses resulting from one hurricane exhaust that coverage, while our agreement with the private reinsurers allows for one reinstatement of coverage on all the private layers should losses resulting from one or more severe weather events exhaust that coverage. The FHCF LAC layer provides for reinstatement of coverage at no additional premium; however, our private agreement requires us to pay 100% additional premium to reinstate the coverage it provides. To protect us in the event a reinstatement of coverage under our private agreement becomes necessary, we purchased a reinsurance premium protection policy. Our RPP policy reimburses us 100% of the amount of any reinstatement premium that we would have to pay to reinstate coverage on the first private layer and 70% on the second private layer. Our agreement with the FHCF does not provide for reinstatement of the coverage provided by the Mandatory or TICL layers.

Our non-catastrophe reinsurance agreement provides excess-of-loss coverage for losses arising out of property business up to $1,700 in excess of $1,000 per risk. Should a loss recovery, or series of loss recoveries, exhaust the coverage provided under the agreement for losses arising out of property business, one reinstatement of the $1,700 of coverage limit is included at 50% additional premium. The agreement, including reinstatements, provides aggregate coverage of $3,400 for losses arising out of property business, while any single occurrence is limited to $1,700. The agreement also provides coverage for losses arising out of a combination of property and casualty business up to $2,200 in excess of $1,000 per occurrence, subject to a maximum recovery on any one loss occurrence, regardless of the number of risks involved for property or the number or type of insureds for casualty, of $2,200.

For the Garage program that we discontinued as of May 31, 2009, we entered into quota share reinsurance agreements for policy years prior to the 2009-2010 policy year, but we did not enter into a new quota share agreement after July 31, 2009. We

recognized commission revenue on our previous quota share agreements totaling $883 for the three-month period ended June 30, 2010, and $913 for the six-month period ended June 30, 2010.

We write flood insurance under an agreement with the National Flood Insurance Program. We cede 100% of the premiums written and the related risk of loss. We earn commissions for the issuance of flood policies based upon a fixed percentage of net written premiums and the processing of flood claims based upon a fixed percentage of incurred losses, and we can earn additional commissions by meeting certain growth targets for the number of in-force policies. We recognized commission revenue from our flood program of $112 and $86 for the three-month periods ended June 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively, and $193 and $320 for the six-month periods ended June 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

We amortize our prepaid reinsurance premiums over the annual agreement period, and we record that amortization in Ceded Premiums Earned on our unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income. The table below summarizes the amounts of our ceded premiums written under the various types of agreements, as well as the amortization of prepaid reinsurance premiums:

	Three Months Ended June 30,						Six Months Ended June 30,
	2011			2010			2011			2010
Excess-of-loss	$	(84,699	)	$	(83,188	)	$	(83,746	)	$	(82,945	)
Quota share	(169		)	(47		)	(281		)	(38		)
Flood	(3,035		)	(2,400		)	(5,114		)	(4,177		)
Ceded premiums written	$	(87,903	)	$	(85,635	)	$	(89,141	)	$	(87,160	)
Increase in ceded unearned premiums	65,943			63,691			45,923			41,823
Ceded premiums earned	$	(21,960	)	$	(21,944	)	$	(43,218	)	$	(45,337	)

We realized recoveries under our reinsurance agreements totaling $5,407 and $8,017 for the three-month periods ended June 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively, and $6,579 and $9,358 for the six-month periods ended June 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

As of June 1, 2011, our 2005 contract with the FHCF was commuted; any catastrophe losses we incur (in excess of amounts we reported to the FHCF as of June 1, 2011) on events that occurred during the 2005 contract year that would otherwise have been covered by the FHCF contract prior to commutation will not be reimbursed by the FHCF. As a result of the commutation, we recorded a reinsurance receivable of $12,738 related to losses incurred from Hurricane Wilma, while we reduced reinsurance recoverable on unpaid losses related to Hurricane Wilma by $13,630, resulting in catastrophe losses incurred totaling $892. We will receive the $12,738 from the FHCF during the third quarter of 2011.