Slide Insurance CEO and founder Bruce Lucas is once again receiving criticism.
Lucas, the company’s chief operating officer and chief risk officer, and his wife, won $50.3 million, two and three years after building a slide of failed insurance companies from state-run civil property and casualty insurance and insurance transferred from take-out.
The 10-year disclosure, which raised eyebrows to pay a large bonus after Lucas used citizen takeout to establish heritage and victims, came into a prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which outlines plans for a slide to sell stocks in the open market.
The latest disclosure has sparked incisive comments from critics who doubted the insurance industry’s claims about financial difficulties earlier in the decade. These claims have led to reforms that would increase the costs of insurers to challenge the insurers’ claim decisions and protect the corporation from paying most of the legal costs filed by the plaintiffs.
In 2023 and 2024, pay, stock, and bonus payments to Lucas and his wife Shannon, $50.3 million, appeared on page 132 of the prospectus.
The Tampa-based company reported net profit of $288 million over two years. That is, it reported 13% of the total premiums of $2.2 billion collected over the same period.
The filing also said that when these policies were updated in 2024, the slide increased premiums by 23.2% due to policies taken from citizens, Florida’s so-called last resort insurance company.
Slide refused to answer questions from the South Florida Sun Sentinel about disclosure.
It quoted “a quiet period,” according to a website run by ICR, a financial communications consultant.
During the period, principals are prohibited from discussing the financial performance of the company or prospects. This period is intended to prevent market manipulation and ensure that potential investors receive relevant information from the company’s prospectus.
Slide’s prospectus describes the company as a “fast-growing, technology-ready coastal insurance company,” which developed the ability to identify and implement expansion opportunities faster than its competitors.
“We control every aspect of the value chain, including technology, underwriting, actuarial, distribution, claims, risk management, and more, ensuring that we maximize profitability while maintaining disciplined underwriting standards.”
However, critics of the 2022-2023 legislative reform said the benefits and compensation figures posted by Slide proved that they were right to be skeptical.
“The ability to file profits very quickly and to file for public disclosure is the result of policyholders’ overclaims for Florida’s reduced insurance products,” said Waylon Thompson, presidential election for the Florida Judicial Association, a trade group of plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Legislative reforms allow property insurance companies to “cash while Florida property owners pay the highest premiums in the country,” he said.
Birny Birnbaum, director of the Centre for Economic Justice, an advocacy organization for low-income consumers, calls Slide’s profits “outrageous.” They “punished” citizen policyholders who “punished” new entrants like forced takeout and large rate rises (permitted) slides for growing from zero to $1 billion without significant acquisition costs, he said.
Rep. Hilary Cassell, the plaintiff’s lawyer and vice-chairman of the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee, accused Slide executive of “paying millions of dollars of compensation behind Florida policyholders.”
An article posted on the Insurance Journal website on Monday cited Douglas Heller, director of insurance for the US Consumer Federation, calling it “really shocking.” According to the article, Heller asked, “How much did the policyholder have to pay to cover this?”
This article noted that Lucas’ $21.2 million coverage in 2024 surpassed all but one official transaction insurance company based in Florida, and exceeded wages and bonus levels of large national insurance companies such as Allstate, Chubb, State Farm, Liberty Mutual and Progressive.
Regulators: No salaries
A spokeswoman for the Department of Insurance Regulation said that in response to the Sun Sentinel’s response to slide compensation, benefits and increases for citizens’ renewals, “it is inaccurate to suggest that insurance companies’ enforcement salaries are funded solely by citizens’ radical efforts.”
She noted that her salary was reported by Slide Insurance Holdings Inc., Slide holding company. This includes management agents, reinsurance holders, claims managers, contractor brokers, in-house insurance agents, and two “non-operating entities.”
The slides “we’ve been a private company for the time being, and unfortunately, OIR doesn’t have the authority to control what they’re doing or pay employees at any level,” she said. “However, please note that the documents you cite indicate that these salaries are not paid by regulated entities (carriers), but rather by holding companies that own the constellations of other companies operating in multiple states.”
The prospectus points out that 99.5% of slide’s policy covers facilities in Florida, with the remaining half percent in South Carolina.
Policyholders are not obligated to remain citizens, a spokesperson said, and are encouraged to explore their options.
“The Florida real estate market has been the healthiest for over a decade, and consumers need to talk regularly with agents to ensure the best insurance at the best prices available,” she said.
Slide’s prospectus provided several reasons beyond what citizens claim, including that citizens must maintain reinsurance coverage in coastal areas where citizens make up 30% to 40% of premiums, but citizens do not need to purchase comparable levels of reinsurance.
The company also said its coverage exceeds that permitted by law, including:
– Coverage of up to $10 million per insurance property compared to citizens in most parts of the state and up to $1 million in Monroe and Miami-Dade counties.
– Personal liability coverage up to $500,000 compared to a citizen’s maximum of $100,000.
– Compensation of personal property up to 75% of value compared to 50% of citizens.
– Medical expenses up to $5,000 compared to the citizens’ $2,000.
– There is no requirement for policyholders to maintain flood insurance.
– Provides screen enclosures, solar panels, animal liabilities, equipment failures, and personal property coverage. Citizens do not compensate for these liabilities.
Construction business
Slide CEO Lucas previously used civic policy to build business books.
A few years after establishing Heritage Property & Casualty, we also use takeout from citizens. In 2015, Lucas paid a $16 million stock award and a $10 million bonus, reported the Palm Beach Post. The following year, he asked state insurance regulators to approve an average rate hike of 14.9%, the news article said.
At that time, only 16% of heritage policies had been deprived of citizens.
Lucas launched the slide in 2021. By the end of March 2025 it was Florida’s sixth largest insurance company, according to the state’s latest quarterly housing market share report.
In 2023, the company quickly built a business book by assuming more than 158,000 policies for two failed companies and relying on the laws that the state had amended in 2022 to encourage more takeout from its citizens.
Last year, Slide had envisioned a civic policy of 135,975 people. This envisages most of the 16 companies that participated in the civic depopulation programme. In 2023, the slides envisaged 82,781 civic policies.
Last week’s submission by the Insurance Regulation Office showed that the company had a policy of 342,209 at the end of March. Of these, the policy was for single-family homes occupied by 292,029 owners and 37,467 condo units.
The prospectus states that around 56% of that policy is expected by citizens.
Until 2023, the state allowed civic policyholders to reject takeout offers for some reason. The new law prohibits policyholders from renewing with citizens after receiving a take-out offer to increase premiums to less than 20% from the current Citizen Premium.
High cost estimate
In 2024, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that the slides applied more than 15,478 citizen policies after policyholders failed to respond to letters that estimate renewal premiums would increase by more than 20%.
The proposed renewal premium, 759 out of the 992 Florida ZIP code, averaged 40% to 832% higher than the Citizen Premium, was sent to policyholders for three takeaways.
In late 2023, the State Department of Insurance and Regulation responded to the complaint by closing the insurance company’s offer of 40% more than the estimated cost of renewal for citizens. We have also limited the number of updates that one company is allowed to send.
Slide addressed the Sun Sentinel survey results, saying the premium offers were “outliers” and that customers who received the letter and agreed to takeout were updated to be less than the amount estimated in the takeout letter.
Last year, an insurance agent serving the Civic Market Accountability Advisory Board complained that businesses were reducing the scope of flood damage by completely eliminating a company when it exceeds $10,000 or negligent citizen customers.
The Insurance Regulation Authority requires that the insurers that retrieve citizen policies provide coverage comparable to citizens for at least three years.
A coverage comparison sheet posted on the citizens’ website reported that Slide and four other companies had excluded the extent of water damage from their takeout policies. However, the agent said the slide was the only insurance company he was aware of.
At an advisory committee meeting, office officials said the clause was added to the latest takeout licence, which reminded insurers that comparable coverage is required.
A spokesman for the slide told the Sun Sentinel earlier that it was not the only thing that removed the water range from policies taken from citizens.
A civic spokesman said the company’s agency services director was guaranteed in October 2024 by Lucas and CEO of Monarch Insurance.
Monarch later told the Sun Sentinel that it would never completely eliminate the extent of water damage, but automatically replaced the area of the entire water damage with a limited coverage of $10,000 for citizen takeout.
Ron Burtibise covers South Florida Sun Sentinel’s business and consumer issues. He can be contacted by telephone at 954-356-4071 or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.
Original issue: June 4th, 2025, 4:46am EDT
