Bob Ricker, president of the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, has announced he is leaving his post after overseeing the homeowners' market of last resort for the past three years. Ricker's immediate replacement will be Scott Wallace, who serves as Citizens' chief of operations. Wallace will serve as president until Citizens can conduct a statewide search for a new chief executive officer, a move endorsed by Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty.

Ricker started his three-year tenure and was named president shortly after the Florida Legislature created Citizens in 2002. Previously, Ricker had worked for the Florida Department of Insurance, the former Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association, and held positions with other public and private entities. As president of Citizens, Ricker guided the insurer through turbulent times, including a beavey of negative press due to its poor performance in handling claims from the 2003 and 2005 hurricane seasons. Citizens' claims handling process was a major subject during the 2006 legislative session.

Ricker also watched, when buffeted by two major hurricane seasons, private insurers curtailed their market share. Citizens, now with more than 1.2 million policies, adds thousands more policyholders every month as private carriers refuse to write new business in hurricane-prone Florida. About half of the new customers are coming from Poe Financial Group, which earlier this year was liquidated and declared insolvent by the state. Poe has pumped more than 300,000 policyholders into Citizens. The three Poe companies, once the third-largest homeowners' group in the state, cited the financial impact of the hurricanes for their downfall.