By Mark D. Killian
Managing Editor
The Florida Bar created Florida Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company in 1987 in response to a volatile professional liability insurance market. Now 19 years later, FLMIC has begun to pay back the last of those who helped capitalize the captive insurance company.

“We are delighted to give back the capital that those members of The Florida Bar who so freely gave to the company to get us to this point,” said FLMIC President William Loucks.

The company recently received permission from the Office of Insurance Regulation to begin redeeming its surplus Series C certificates, which those who wanted to buy professional liability insurance from FLMIC were required to purchase up until 1997, Loucks said. The company has already redeemed all but a very few of its Series A certificates — those purchased by individual Bar members — and its single Series B certificate — purchased by the Bar itself — to get the company off the ground.

“The company is in very good financial health as indicated by the regulatory agency approval [to redeem the surplus certificates], Loucks said. “We now have a policyholder surplus of just under $20 million, so we are more than in a good financial position to affect these redemptions and give the money back to the people who helped us get to this point.”

Loucks said FLMIC received permission to begin redeeming the $2.681 million the company holds in Series C certificates late last year and letters to the holders of those certificates went out early this year.

“We are hopeful we can complete that process as quickly as possible with a target date of completing the Series C certificate redemption by June of 2007,” Loucks said. “When that is done, all of our certificates will be redeemed. All of the capital monies provided to the company by the policyholders or by certificate holders — those who supported us at the very beginning — will have been returned.”

FLMIC currently insures about 2,100 firms in Florida and a total of about 4,200 lawyers.