Every Citizens Depopulation Packet comes down to one comparison: the private carrier's offer against your Citizens estimated renewal premium. One number decides everything else in the envelope, and it is worth understanding precisely.
If a private carrier's takeout offer is not more than 20% greater than your estimated Citizens renewal premium, you are no longer eligible to remain with Citizens for that policy. The offer does not have to be cheaper. It does not have to match. It only has to land within twenty percent above your renewal estimate, and Citizens eligibility ends.
Say your Citizens renewal estimate is $4,000.
Notice what the rule does not ask: whether the new policy's coverage matches, whether the deductible structure changed, or whether you like the carrier. Eligibility is a premium comparison only. Everything else — and there is a lot else — is your job to compare before the deadline. We wrote a separate guide to comparing the offers themselves.
Doing nothing is a choice, and it is the worst one available. If you take no action by the packet's deadline and at least one offer is within the 20% window, your policy is assumed by the carrier that offered the lowest premium — automatically. Not the best coverage. Not the strongest claims operation. The cheapest bid wins by default, whatever its policy language looks like.
And the transfer sticks. There is no longer a post-assumption window to return to Citizens after the fact. Once the assumption happens, that carrier is your carrier until you shop your way somewhere better at a future renewal.
Packets increasingly carry more than one carrier's offer. That matters for two reasons. First, only one offer needs to fall inside the 20% window to end your Citizens eligibility. Second, when several offers qualify, choosing actively is the only way to weigh premium against coverage — the default assignment weighs premium alone. A $200 difference in annual premium can sit next to a $40,000 difference in how a roof claim pays out.
The selection deadline printed in your packet is the whole game. Before it, you choose among qualifying offers — or keep Citizens if none qualify. After it, the lowest bidder takes the policy by default. Mark the date the day the envelope arrives.
Leaving Citizens does not end the flood conversation. If you carry flood coverage because Citizens requires it, review whether your new carrier or your lender still expects it — dropping flood in a coastal county because a mandate technically lapsed is usually a mistake in Broward and Palm Beach County regardless of who writes the wind.
Send us the packet the week it arrives — unopened is fine. A licensed agent will confirm which offers actually fall inside the 20% window, pull the coverage forms behind each offer, and put the comparison in front of you in plain English before the deadline: premium, hurricane deductible, roof valuation, water damage limits, and how each carrier handles claims. Then the choice is genuinely yours instead of the default's.
Start on the Citizens takeout overview, send the packet through our quote page, or call (561) 503-2696. The 20% math takes us about ten minutes — and it decides everything downstream.
Rules current as of August 2, 2026. Depopulation mechanics change between cycles; we verify against the current packet rules each round.
This article describes the general case. Coverage terms, limits, and exclusions vary by carrier and policy form — your policy governs. Send us your declarations page and we will tell you exactly where you stand.
A licensed agent will read your coverage and answer plainly. No obligation, and no sales script.