Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 — Nationwide Insurance of Florida, the states fourth-largest homeowners insurer, has announced that it will drop anywhere between 25,000 to 30,000 homeowners policies as part of a strategy to reduce its overall exposure for losses stemming from the many hurricanes that are expected to hit the state. This announcement follows on the heels of other news reported last week in which the company indicated it would not write new policies in Florida after September 1st. With this announcement, Nationwide becomes the seventh company to announce it is leaving Florida since last year’s devastating hurricane season.