Florida’s insurance commissioner announced his office has approved four rate decreases on homeowner policies, averaging 7% and affecting 62,000 policies at renewal.
And more rate cuts are on the way—further evidence that taking excessive litigation out of the equation has had a big impact on the once-struggling Florida property insurance market.
“I expect to see more aggressive rate cuts in the near future and going into 2027,” Commissioner Michael Yaworsky said in a statement Tuesday. “OIR is receiving a flood of rate decrease requests,” ranging from 0.3% to 19.7.
“This is great news for Floridians and OIR will expedite reviews of rate filings to ensure policyholders feel it in their pockets,” Yaworsky said.
The approved HO average rate decreases were for:
- One Alliance North America (formerly known as Universal North America Insurance): 10.4% average decrease for 17,148 policies
- Safe Harbor Insurance: 4.1% average decrease, affecting 10,501 policies
- Unique Insurance: 3.2% average decrease for 8,266 policies
- Vyrd Insurance: 10.4% decrease for 26,751 policies.
Kin insurance also recently announced planned rate decreases of as much as 20% for policyholders in three south Florida counties, the commissioner noted.
And Dairyland, a Wisconsin-based auto insurer owned by Sentry Insurance, this week announced it will start sending an estimated $30 million in dividend payments to Florida auto policyholders. That follows an average decrease in Dairyland’s Florida auto insurance rates of 14%. The rate cut and dividend payments are the result of legislative reforms and new stability in the Florida market, the company said in a statement.
The carrier did not provide the number of policyholders affected.
For Florida homeowners, the current, 30-day average requested rate decrease is 4.8%, compared to a 5.2% average increase in 2021, and an average approved rate increase of 15% in July 2022, Yaworsky said.
Yaworsky’s good-news announcement was echoed by Florida Citizens Property Insurance officials at the corporation’s board of governors meeting Wednesday morning. Citizens, designed in part to be the state’s property insurer of last resort, has seen its total policy count drop from a high of 1.4 million policies in 2023, near the peak of the insurance crisis, to 266,231 in August of this year as new and existing primary market carriers have taken on more coverage and takeout offers continue.
“When I joined this board six years ago, the number of policies we had was exploding,” said Carlos Beruff, chairman of the board of governors. “We had a failed insurance market in Florida.”
Legislation passed in 2022 and 2023 has effectively reduced excessive and “frivolous” claims litigation, market-wide, Beruff noted. Because of those statutory changes, which ended one-way attorney fees and assignment-of-benefits agreements, the total insured value for Citizens’ coverage has dropped from $553 billion in 2023 to an expected $85 billion this year, Citizens’ data show. The number of full-time employees at Citizens also has dropped significantly, from 1,390 three years ago to 882 today.
Beruff, a residential property developer, said that ideally, Citizens would not exist as the marketplace improves.
Citizens CEO Tim Cerio said at the meeting that he expects further rate decrease in the Florida market in coming months. He and board member Erin Knight urged insurance agents and policyholders to be sure to shop around for better premiums as the market continues to improve.
“If you see an increase, you should shop your policy,” Cerio said. “Even if it’s flat, you really should” shop around.
The rosy outlook was underscored by a report from Morningstar DBRS, a financial services firm, released Wednesday. It noted the dramatic drop in Citizens’ market share in the last two years.
“While Florida remains one of the most catastrophe-exposed insurance markets in the United States, market conditions have improved considerably over the past two years, supporting a more stable operating environment and better insurance availability,” the report noted. “From a credit perspective, a healthier balance between Citizens and private insurers reduces market concentration risk, increases insurance availability, and reflects a more sustainable and competitive insurance ecosystem.”
A major hurricane will provide a true stress test for Florida’s rejuvenated market, the report added.
“Ultimately, private-market insurers’ ability to withstand such an event will be a key indicator of the durability of the market’s ongoing recovery,” Morningstar analysts wrote.
Topics Trends Florida Pricing Trends
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