Florida’s property insurance claims and lawsuits have dropped following the sweeping tort reform introduced by lawmakers in 2022 and 2023, but homeowners in the state are still paying the highest premiums in the nation, according to the latest data.
At the peak of its home insurance crisis during the pandemic, the Sunshine State accounted for 76-80 percent of all homeowners insurance lawsuits nationwide, despite generating only roughly 7-8 percent of the country’s total insurance claims, Insurance Business reported.
Experts believed that excessive litigation and widespread fraud were key reasons why private insurers were cutting coverage and fleeing the state, as their profits could not keep up with growing costs and risks. Trying to save the Florida private home insurance market, lawmakers in Tallahassee passed major reforms to make litigation less appealing to claimants, including establishing bad faith standards, eliminating one-way attorney fees and banning the assignment of benefits.
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The changes in regulations worked. The latest Property Insurance Stability Report published by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) shows that in 2025 Florida had under 5 percent of national claims and just over 41 percent of nationwide homeowners lawsuits. That’s down by nearly half from the 9 percent and 79 percent, respectively, in 2020.
According to regulators, the result of the tort reform has been a steady decrease in home insurance premiums in the state. “Since 2024, 44 companies requested a rate decrease, and 48 companies requested a 0 percent rate,” wrote OIR in its latest report.
“The legislative reforms, among other things, eliminated the guaranteed one-way attorney fees for plaintiffs that provided a gross incentive to sue, with fees in some cases that were five or six times greater than the claim amount itself. We’ve all been paying for the excessive and often frivolous litigation that resulted,” former Florida deputy insurance commissioner Lisa Miller said in a statement. “I applaud the legislature and the Governor for protecting Florida consumers’ interests and helping ensure a stable property insurance marketplace.”
But these successes have not stopped the rise of home insurance premiums in the state entirely, or the fact that Florida homeowners are still paying the highest in the nation, according to some estimates.
Why Are Florida Premiums So High?
According to OIR data, home insurance premiums have decreased in 51 counties since its January report. The average homeowners premium in Florida, including wind coverage, is currently $3,750, according to regulators.
But other estimates put the cost of home insurance in the state much higher. According to Insurify, an insurance comparison platform, the average annual cost for home insurance in Florida, with $300,000 in dwelling coverage, is now $6,060. That is the highest premium in the nation, followed by Oklahoma with an estimated average of $5,760 and Louisiana with $5,076.
Whether OIR’s or Insurify’s estimates are correct, Florida’s home insurance premiums remain among the highest in the country. The cost of coverage is so high because the risk faced by properties in the state, especially in those located immediately by the coast, is just as high.
Since 2020, Florida has been hit by five hurricanes, including Ian, Idalia, Helene, and Milton, and three tropical storms, according to data by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Ian was particularly devastating, causing the death of 158 people and producing an estimated $100 billion in damage in Florida, making the hurricane the costliest in the state's history. But natural disasters like Ian are becoming more frequent and more severe as global temperatures rise, according to experts, and Florida, with its extensive coastline, is exceptionally vulnerable.
As insurers face higher costs, including reinsurance rates (or the cost of insurance for insurers), they pass on these additional expenses to consumers in the form of higher premiums.
Florida is by far not the only state affected by a crisis that looms over the entire country. Driven by the growing threat of natural disasters and elevated rebuilding costs, home insurance premiums nationwide have climbed 46 percent since 2021, according to Insurify—roughly three times as much as inflation.
Another estimate published by the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group, last year put the increase between 2021 and 2024 at a lower 24 percent, with premiums rising to $3,303 per year, on average.
These premium hikes have not gone unnoticed by Americans, especially as they navigate a housing affordability crisis after years of rising home prices, borrowing costs, and property taxes.
An overwhelming majority of U.S. homeowners (71 percent) said the cost of their home insurance has increased over the past few years, with 42 percent saying costs have gone up “a lot,” according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The nonpartisan research group polled 3,524 U.S. adults, including 1,236 homeowners, between March 16 and 22.
Will Premiums Continue Rising—And What Can Stop Them?
Experts at Insurify expect home insurance premiums to continue rising through 2026 for the fifth consecutive year.
At the moment, it is up to state regulators and lawmakers to figure out how to alleviate the financial pressure of rising home insurance premiums on homeowners already struggling with the higher cost of living and housing. But the U.S. government, alerted to the urgency of addressing the threat posed to homeowners nationwide, has started considering federal solutions to the problem.
Among the ones considered are the establishment of a federal reinsurance backstop, sort of a public option that would help private insurers absorb catastrophic tail risks; the federal funding of large-scale residential retrofits to harden homes against natural disasters and make them more resilient; and expanding the U.S. Treasury’s role to catalog risk and identify coverage gaps through the National Catastrophe Risk Consortium.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Sam Wilson.
