Full story in Florida Today

By Anne Geggis

The state’s insurer of last resort is proposing its first rate decrease in 10 years — big enough that its customers in some of the most historically storm-battered parts of the state will see average premium costs drop by hundreds of dollars.

Statewide, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is recommending an average 2.6% rate decrease for all its noncommercial property insurance lines at the same time it’s reached another milestone its leaders say indicates the bad old days of Florida’s insurance crisis are well in the rearview mirror.

“We’ve turned the ship,” said former House Speaker Paul Renner, who oversaw changes that made it harder for policyholders to sue their insurer. Those legal reforms, backers of the measure have said, were necessary to curtail lawsuits to lower insurance costs.

South Florida’s southernmost counties, which have usually paid the most for property insurance, will see some of the steepest declines in premiums.

Nearly 77% of the policyholders in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties will see their premiums drop by an average of $433 and $423, respectively.

In Monroe County, 43% of the policyholders will see their premiums drop, by an average of $735.

And 72.1% of Citizens’ customers in Broward County will have to pay an average of $421 less when policies renew June 1, 2026.

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Effect of the reforms or better weather?

That decrease in Citizens’ customers is because the private market is stepping up to take on more risk — insuring more properties — in the country’s most hurricane-prone state and in Florida’s riskier areas.

That confluence of events — more companies, dropping rates and no major storms hitting Florida in the last year — has the state’s top insurance regulator declaring victory over the crisis that had the state’s insurance industry at a breaking point not long ago.

In the early 2020s, property owners were routinely hit with double-digit rate increases and 10 insurers went insolvent.

The legislative reforms, enacted as the state’s insurance industry teetered on the brink of catastrophe between 2019 and 2023, are working, said Mike Yaworsky, the state insurance commissioner.

“We can show unequivocally that this marketplace has stabilized, the consumers are finding relief, that we have more options for people than we have in decades, that our companies are more capitalized to handle whatever comes, whenever the wind blows, than they have been in years,” Yaworsky said at the Florida Chamber of Commerce Insurance Summit on Dec. 5.

“We were right. This market is better off for it. Our people are better off for it. Florida can continue to grow, and can continue to be a place where families can call home because of those actions.”

Yaworsky warned against tinkering with the rules put in place during the crisis, as occurred during the last legislative session. State Rep. Hillary Cassel , R-Dania Beach, proposed once again allowing some attorney fees to be part of the calculation in litigated settlements. The bill, however, only made it out of one committee.

“The facts are now sternly on our side,” Yaworsky said, explaining that he believes that the changes the dead bill would have represented would have been the equivalent of adding “a multibillion-dollar tax on the backs of Floridians.”

“It’s time to move on from this debate that’s gone on for too long, and to move into areas that will continue to make this marketplace better,” Yaworsky said.

Costs are still a concern

That resounding endorsement for the legal changes that made it more difficult for a policyholder to sue over an insurer’s estimate of repair damage was also heard at a Dec. 10’s meeting of the Citizens Board of Governors.

“Thanks to the governor’s leadership and the Legislature’s actions, I can say unequivocally that Citizens has returned to its proper role as Florida’s insurer of last resort,” said Tim Cerio, Citizens’ CEO and executive director. “It’s important now for us to stay the course and resist any effort to roll back the critical reforms responsible for this success.”

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Trying to stem the tide of litigation — that many in the industry and government blamed on opportunistic lawyers filing fraudulent claims — legislators agreed to end the practice of adding legal costs to litigated insurance settlements.

More than 100K storm claims closed without payment

The number of lawsuits has substantially dropped — hence state and insurance industry leaders’ declaration the legal changes have yielded success.

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Renner put the blame for the earlier crisis squarely on litigation.In a dispute with your insurer?

“We can’t stop the things that insurance is there for, but the man-made disaster … we did begin to solve that,” said Renner, who is in a widening field trying to get the Republican nomination to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The “man” Renner believes made this disaster was crystal clear in his insurance summit speech: so-called “billboard lawyers.”

More savings to come, lawmaker says

The full impact of the 2022 reforms is yet to be realized, Renner said.

“I don’t think the public has felt it yet in an important way,” Renner said. “People are saying to me, ‘I was shocked and pleased that my rates didn’t go up.’ But that’s not good enough.”

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