21st Century Holding Company Announces 60% Increase in Insurance Sales
PLANTATION, Fla.--May 23, 2002--21st Century Holding Company , a vertically integrated financial services holding company, reported today record written and bound policies for their auto insurance division.Edward J. Lawson, President and CEO, announced that Federated National Insurance Company and American Vehicle Insurance Company, both subsidiaries of 21st Century Holding Company, had a combined 60% sales increase in insurance polices written and bound in April and May 2002 over April and May 2001. Mr. Lawson commented, "I believe that as many of the larger insurance carriers such as Allstate, State Farm, Progressive, and Geico continue to struggle to gain market share in a hard market, our growth strategy of marketing primarily through franchised and company owned stores and targeting profitable high growth areas at increased rate levels is just starting to pay off in top and bottom line growth. This will become more apparent as our earnings accelerate into the future."
Mr. Lawson continued: "The year 2002 is shaping up as a terrific year for us. When we see increased premium revenue, it affects not only profits in our insurance companies but also our other subsidiaries. Assurance Managing General Agents, Inc., becomes more profitable through increased fee income. Our claims company, Superior Adjusting, Inc., sees increased profitability. Our franchise and company owned agencies become more profitable through increased sales of ancillary products. Finally, our finance company, Federated Premium Finance, Inc., becomes more profitable because we finance more contracts. Consequently, we feel our momentum is continuing to build and our management team is ready.
Guidance for our second quarter ending June 30, 2002 will be updated May 31st after the market closes and you can now expect it to be positive."
21st Century Holding Company manages its insurance underwriting, distribution and claims process through its subsidiaries.
| -- | The Company's wholly owned subsidiaries, Federated National Insurance Company and American Vehicle Insurance Company, underwrite standard and non-standard personal automobile insurance in the state of Florida. Federated National also has authority to underwrite flood insurance, mobile home insurance, and homeowners property and casualty insurance in the state of Florida. |
| -- | The Company's wholly owned managing general agent, Assurance Managing General Agents, Inc., has underwriting authority for Federated National, American Vehicle, and third-party insurance companies. |
| -- | The Company's wholly owned claims adjusting company, Superior Adjusting, Inc., processes claims made by the insureds of Federated National, American Vehicle, and third party insurance companies which contract with Superior. |
| -- | Federated Premium Finance, Inc., another wholly owned subsidiary, offers premium financing to insureds of Federated National and American Vehicle, as well as to third party insureds. |
| -- | Express Tax Service, Inc., an 80% owned subsidiary, licenses its brand name and its software to retail tax preparers and over the Internet. |
| -- | The Company offers other ancillary services including electronic income tax filing, tax preparation and tag & title transfer services through Federated Agency Group, Inc., also a wholly owned subsidiary. |
| -- | Fed USA, Inc., a wholly owned franchiser company, offers single and master franchise opportunities to individuals to own and operate their own business with the support of two brands, Fed USA Insurance and Financial Services and Express Tax. |
21st Century Holding Company (the "Company") cautions readers that certain important factors may affect the Company's actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements which may be deemed to have been made in this release or which are otherwise made by or on behalf of the Company. For this purpose, any statements contained in this report that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "estimate," or "continue" or the negative other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Factors which may affect the Company's results include, but are not limited to, risks related to the nature of the Company's business; the limit on the Company's ability to expand due to a consent order entered into with the Florida Department of Insurance; reinsurance; dependence on investment income; the adequacy of its liability for losses and LAE regulation; insurance agents; claims experience; limited experience in the insurance industry; competition; ratings by industry services; catastrophe losses; reliance on key personnel and other risks discussed elsewhere in this Report and in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission the ("Commission").