PURE

What they are known for

PURE is a reciprocal exchange, not a stock insurance company. The policyholders are the members, and they carry each other's risk. PURE defines the structure in its own glossary as "an unincorporated association in which members exchange contracts and pay premiums through an attorney-in-fact for the insurance of each other."

That structure is why people either like PURE a lot or find it baffling. When the business performs, some of the surplus goes back to members instead of out to shareholders. The catch is that membership comes with paperwork, money in up front for the first few years, and a run of conditions that are easy to miss while somebody is selling to you.

The other thing PURE is known for is loss prevention. It publishes a risk management consultation, a severe weather monitoring service it calls the PURE Situation Room, and an art services team. If you own a real collection or a house in a wildfire area, those services are part of what you're actually buying.

Reciprocal exchangeMember ownedHigh value homeBroker placed onlyTokio Marine group

What they actually issue, and who underwrites it

There are three PURE entities and they are not interchangeable. Which one writes your policy changes what you get, so it's worth knowing which one is on the paperwork.

PURE, the admitted carrier. Legally Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange, a Florida domiciled reciprocal insurer. This is the one that carries membership and a Subscriber Savings Account.
PURE Specialty Exchange, the surplus lines carrier. Legally PURE Specialty Reciprocal Exchange, an Arizona domiciled domestic surplus lines reciprocal, introduced in March 2022. PURE describes it as being for "responsible high net worth families with homes that do not meet the admitted market's preferred appetite." It has its own separate attorney-in-fact.
PURE Programs, the underwriting manager. A managing general underwriter, not a carrier, introduced in January 2017. It arranges the non-admitted business: coastal homes, wildfire exposed homes, homes rented to others, homes under construction, non-standard homeowners, non-standard and high-profile excess liability, and flood.

Here is the sentence most write-ups about PURE leave out. PURE Programs states in its own footer that "policies arranged by PURE Programs may not confer the benefits of being a reciprocal exchange member including Subscriber or Member Savings Accounts." If the member economics are why you're looking at PURE, ask which entity is issuing the policy before you count on them.

A surplus lines policy, one written by a company your state has not licensed, carries no state guaranty fund behind it, and the forms and rates do not go through the same filing process an admitted policy does. That's not a reason to avoid it. It's a reason to know which one you have.

The attorney-in-fact is PURE Risk Management, LLC, which PURE describes as "a for-profit entity" that "serves as PURE's attorney-in-fact for a fee." It sits under Privilege Underwriters, Inc., which PURE describes as a member of the Tokio Marine Group of Companies. Tokio Marine finished buying it in February 2020.

The membership model, and what a Subscriber Savings Account really is

The Subscriber Savings Account is PURE's headline feature and the one people oversell hardest. PURE defines it as "a notional account held for each active PURE member, reflecting their individual share of PURE's policyholder surplus." Notional is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Read PURE's own conditions before you treat it as savings.

Allocations are not guaranteed. PURE states they "are made at the discretion of management, based on the performance of the business and require regulatory approval," specifically approval by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.
The balance can go down. PURE states that the accounts "remain on PURE's balance sheet, available to pay claims if necessary. Because of this, SSA balances could decrease."
You can't ask for the money, and the balance earns no interest.
It has not happened every year. PURE states it "has made an allocation in 11 of our past 20 years in business."
There is a cost of entry. PURE states that members "are required to contribute surplus (capital), in addition to paying premiums, for their first five years of membership." That contribution is separate from the savings account and separate from premium.

None of that makes the model bad. A reciprocal really does hand surplus back to members in a way a stock company never will. It does mean you weigh PURE on coverage, service and price first, and treat any savings account credit as something that might show up.

Coverage at a glance

PURE publishes these lines: high value home, jewelry, art and collections, automobile, personal excess liability, fraud and cyber, watercraft, flood, condo and co-op, and home systems protection.

High value home is the main product and the reason most households end up looking at PURE.
Automobile is published as covering "everyday vehicles, one-of-a-kind collector cars and everything in between," so the collector car and the daily driver can sit in one place. See collector car insurance.
Jewelry, art and collections is a product with its own name, not an endorsement bolted on at the end. See valuables and jewelry.
Personal excess liability sits over the whole household. PURE publishes a savings claim on limits above $10 million. That is PURE's claim, with PURE's footnote attached. See personal umbrella.
Fraud and cyber is published as "fraud protection, whether online or off," which isn't the same thing as a standalone personal cyber policy. Read the product page before you treat it as one.
Flood is written by PURE rather than left to the NFIP alone. On an expensive house that matters, because the NFIP limit stops well short of what the rebuild costs.

Who PURE says it is for

PURE publishes its own threshold, and the exact wording is worth reading carefully: "PURE is designed exclusively for homes insured for $1 million or more."

Insured for, not valued at. That's the cost to rebuild the house, not the price it would sell for. Across much of Oregon and Washington those two numbers sit a long way apart, and they miss in both directions. An older house on a valuable lot can sell well over a million and insure for less. A custom build on cheap land runs the other way. If you're working out whether you're in PURE's range, the reconstruction estimate is the number, not the listing.

PURE Specialty Exchange sits behind that for harder risks. PURE describes its high value homeowners product as "designed for homes in coastal and wildfire exposed areas, as well as short-term rentals and other challenging risk profiles, requiring up to $50M in coverage that do not qualify for coverage with an admitted insurer."

Good to know before you choose

PURE does not sell direct. It writes through appointed independent brokers, and its own site runs a "find a broker" path for consumers and a separate application for brokers. You can't buy it from PURE without somebody like us in the middle.
The financial strength rating is A (Excellent), affirmed by AM Best on July 29, 2026 with a stable outlook, covering both PURE and PURE Specialty Exchange. Read past the letter, though. In the same release AM Best assesses the balance sheet as strong but calls operating performance marginal. It names two offsetting factors: the capital structure, which includes surplus notes from the parent, and reliance on reinsurance. PURE's own website describes the rating as reflecting "good operating performance," which isn't the word AM Best used. We're quoting AM Best.
PURE non-renews. It says so itself: "when necessary, we have made the tough call to non-renew policies that no longer fit our criteria." Being member owned isn't a promise that your policy renews forever.
PURE does not publish where it writes, and we won't guess. What PURE does publish is that its Wildfire Mitigation Program is open to members in a list of states that includes Oregon, Washington and Idaho. So there are members in those states. That says nothing about whether PURE would write your house today. Underwriting decides that.
Loss prevention is opt-in and conditional. PURE's own footnote says those programs "are available to select members in select states." Select means select.

Explore related coverage

Service and claims

If you already have a PURE policy, PURE handles claims, billing and roadside on one number, 888-813-7873. Members can report a claim, pay a bill and pull auto ID cards in the member portal or the app. Member services runs Monday to Friday 7am to 9pm Eastern and Saturday 8am to 8pm Eastern.

For a coverage change, a limit review, or a question about whether the policy still fits the house, call us instead. That part is ours.

Richard Sweet, owner of Vantage Point Risk and an independent insurance advisor. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. How we review this.

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