There are a lot of Florida property and casualty insurers looking to diversify their book of business by exploring markets in less volatile arenas. But if youre from Puerto Rico, the island commonwealth under the customs jurisdiction of the United States, Florida might seem like a pretty good place to begin a move into the U.S. market.

Cooperativa de Seguros Mltiples de Puerto Rico is the second-largest, island-based P&C insurer in Puerto Rico. It is a non-profit organization owned by 200 other cooperatives (such as credit unions) on the island. Jos Burgos, vice president of information systems and CIO, said the company has been studying its move to Florida for the last five years. We do a lot of business in Puerto Rico, but it is a windstorm area and we are also in an earthquake zone, he said. We were looking to other places to diversify. Florida, with its huge Latin population, was a natural. We understand the market there, he said.

Seguros Mltiples developed its own, in-house policy system for its Puerto Rican business, but it was written in Spanish, it did not have a Florida rating program, and the company felt it was too limited for the new market. We felt we needed new software for the States, Burgos said. We were starting with a small operation in Florida and we wanted something that would grow with us. We werent looking for an expensive system. There is a lot of software in the United States and with the equipment involved you have to make a large investment.