Big Changes ahead for Neptune Flood

Neptune Flood  will become one of the first private insurers to offer flood insurance to businesses early next year.

The St. Petersburg-based company, which taps advanced computing power to evaluate and price flood insurance policies, will launch a commercial flood insurance product in January.

The company also is building an insurance policy management system that will launch in parallel with the commercial insurance product. Renovations will get underway next month on Neptune’s new headquarters – a former medical office in downtown St. Petersburg – with plans to move into the site in the spring.

There’s a shift in the C-suite as well. Trevor Burgess, who was president and CEO of the former C1 Bank in St. Petersburg, had served as chairman of Neptune since becoming the majority shareholder two years ago. A few weeks ago, Burgess switched roles with founder Jim Albert, who had been Neptune’s CEO.

“Jim’s passion is about evangelizing the need for Americans to buy flood insurance. He also is passionate about Neptune and its brand and helping expand that across the U.S.” Burgess said.  “I’m an experienced operating CEO and when we looked at what we wanted to accomplish in 2020, we looked at each other and said, we don’t need to go out and find someone else. We have the people right here in our leadership team, let’s just switch roles and then we will each be focused on the things we are strongest at.”

Climate change has brought an urgency to the company’s strategy.

“Currently there are five million flood insurance policies in the U. S., but the scientific data tells us that upwards of 62 million homes are at risk of flooding. There’s a huge coverage gap that exists,” Burgess said. “A lot of what Neptune and Jim Albert are focused on is helping to educate Americans about the need to protect their most important asset, which is their home, from the risk of flooding.”