By Michael Loney

May 26 - (The Insurer) - Bruce Lucas-led Florida homeowners insurance carrier Slide Insurance Holdings has filed a Form S-1 for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “SLDE”.

Tampa-based Slide filed the S-1 application to list its common stock on May 23. The filing did not list a target amount of shares to be offered.

Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers of the offering.

Fellow Florida homeowners carrier American Integrity and Bermudian (re)insurer Aspen both floated on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month, raising $110 million and $397.5 million respectively before the underwriters’ option.

Tampa-based American Integrity floated at an offering price of $16 a share on May 8. Its share price closed at $16.54 on May 23.

Slide was launched in 2021 as a technology-enabled coastal specialty insurer. It writes single family and condominium policies in coastal states along the Atlantic seaboard through insurance subsidiary Slide Insurance Company.

Florida accounted for 99.5% of Slide’s policies as of the end of last year, with the rest in South Carolina.

“We target coastal zones with high population density and low underwriting capacity that are often ignored or mispriced by our competitors,” the S-1 filing said.

Slide has grown shareholders’ equity from $102 million at the end of 2021 to $433 million at the end of 2024, a compound annual growth rate of 62%. In-force premium has grown to $1.33 billion at the end of 2024, up from $875 million in 2023.

The carrier’s average consolidated combined ratio from formation to the end of 2024 was 80.3%. The combined ratio improved to 72.3% in 2024 from 79.0% in 2023.

Gross premiums written increased to $278 million in the first quarter of this year compared with $245 million in the same period of 2024, while the combined ratio improved to 58.9% from 66.7%.

Founder and CEO Lucas has more than 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. He previously founded and led Heritage Insurance Holdings as its chairman and CEO from 2012 to 2020.

Slide said that coastal specialty markets “present advantageous opportunities for us to continue scaling our business as the underwriting capacity in these markets has significantly declined in the past five years”.

The company said that legislative reforms in Florida in recent years “are constructive to the efficiency and competitive dynamics of the market in which we operate”.

Slide participated in seven take-out opportunities from Florida insurer of last resort Citizens in 2024, assuming an aggregate of 135,530 policies.

“We believe that the assumption of Citizens Insurance policies will provide continuous growth opportunities for years to come,” the S-1 filing said.

Slide has also executed transactions with private insurers looking to exit or reduce exposure, including Truck Insurance Exchange, United Property & Casualty Insurance Company and St Johns Insurance Company.

“We plan to expand our geographical footprint and enter other coastal specialty markets where we believe the market opportunity is similar to Florida, while also expanding our product offerings and introducing new lines such as commercial residential and E&S products,” the filing said.

The filing highlighted that Slide acquired Rhode Island-domiciled Pawtucket Insurance Company from a subsidiary of Heritage in a deal that closed in February this year.

PIC was placed in rehabilitation in May 2023, is currently inactive and has no policies in force or outstanding claims. Slide intends to re-domicile PIC to South Carolina and rename it Slide Specialty Insurance Company.