Organization, Consolidation and Presentation

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2012

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation

ORGANIZATION, CONSOLIDATION AND PRESENTATION

(a)Business

United Insurance Holdings Corp. (referred to in this document as we, our, us, the Company and UPC Insurance) is a property and casualty insurance holding company that sources, writes, and services residential property and casualty insurance policies using a network of agents and a group of wholly-owned insurance subsidiaries. Our primary insurance subsidiary is United Property & Casualty Insurance Company, our insurance affiliate, which was formed in Florida in 1999 and has operated continuously since that time. Our other subsidiaries include United Insurance Management, L.C., our management affiliate, the managing general agent that manages substantially all aspects of our insurance affiliate's business; Skyway Claims Services, LLC, our claims adjusting affiliate that provides services to our insurance affiliate; and UPC Re, our reinsurance affiliate that provides a portion of the reinsurance protection purchased by our insurance affiliate.

Our primary product is homeowners' insurance, which we currently offer in Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts and Rhode Island under authorization from the insurance regulatory authorities in each state. In November 2012, we were authorized to write property and casualty lines in North Carolina. Our insurance affiliate has also applied to insurance regulatory authorities in six additional states to write property and casualty lines.

We conduct our operations under one business segment.

(b)Consolidation and Presentation

We prepare our financial statements in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). While preparing our financial statements, we make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, as well as reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Accordingly, actual results could differ from those estimates. Reported amounts that require us to make extensive use of estimates include our reserves for unpaid losses and loss adjustment expenses, reinsurance recoverable, deferred policy acquisition costs, and investments. Except for the captions on our Consolidated Balance Sheets and Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income, we generally use the term loss(es) to collectively refer to both loss and loss adjustment expenses.

We include all of our subsidiaries in our consolidated financial statements, eliminating all significant intercompany balances and transactions during consolidation.