Florida Insurer Plans Biggest Rate Cut In Its History
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
One of Florida's largest property insurers has moved forward to cut its homeowners' insurance premiums, in a move that could make coverage significantly cheaper for tens of thousands of policyholders in the state.
Florida Peninsula Insurance, the state's ninth-largest property insurer, has requested the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) to approve a statewide reduction of 8.4 percent in its homeowners' premiums and of 12 percent in its condo owners' premiums.
The proposal comes as Florida's property insurance market is showing strong signs of recovery after years marked by skyrocketing premiums and shrinking coverage across the state. These include the fact that home insurers in the Sunshine State collected more premiums than paid out claims last year for the first time since 2015.
A Swift Reversal After Years Of Increases
In the years following the pandemic, Florida's property insurance industry was thrown into a crisis by a combination of growing catastrophe exposure for carriers, higher property values, excessive litigation, and widespread fraud.
Rising expenses caused several major carriers in the state to go insolvent between 2020 and 2023, while others cut coverage in the most disaster-prone areas of the state to avoid paying claims beyond what they could financially sustain. As a result, homeowners in the state faced shrinking availability, higher premiums, and more risks.
A destroyed home is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton in St. Pete Beach, Florida, on October 11, 2024.
A destroyed home is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton in St. Pete Beach, Florida, on October 11, 2024.
GIORGIO VIERA/AFP /AFP via Getty Images
But a series of reforms and interventions by state regulators to fix the state's broken home insurance sector in the last couple of years seems to have paid off. Between 2022 and 2023, Tallahassee lawmakers introduced tort reform measures that successfully reduced litigation in the state. And over the past year, several new, smaller carriers were approved to enter the market.
"The financial position of the Florida insurance industry has improved dramatically over the past two years due to legislative actions which addressed the two factors that led to the risk crisis: legal system abuse and claim fraud," Mark Friedlander, senior director of media relations at the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), told Newsweek.
"Not only have premiums stabilized (reporting a 1.75 percent average increase in 2025, the lowest in the U.S.), but 14 new carriers have entered the market, existing insurers are growing their market share—including major national insurers—and state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has cut its risk exposure in half due to depopulation," he added.
Relief Could Be On The Way For Over 170,000 Floridians
Florida Peninsula Insurance counts over 170,000 policies in the Sunshine State, according to its latest data. Most of these policyholders are likely to benefit from the company's requested premium cuts, should they be implemented, paying lower premiums starting this year or in early 2026.
The company has attributed the requested cut to the legislative reform introduced by Florida lawmakers in recent years.
"The legislative reforms have contributed to a measurable drop in frivolous lawsuits and inflated claims, providing us the ability to pass on the savings from the law's changes to our policyholders," Florida Peninsula president Clint Strauch said in a statement reported by several insurance news media.
"This rate reduction shows that the legislative reforms have successfully addressed the root cause of increasing insurance premiums in Florida."
Newsweek contacted Florida Peninsula Insurance for comment by email on Friday.
The rate drop would be particularly welcome to Florida homeowners, who despite the recent stabilization in premiums still pay some of the highest in the nation. According to Bankrate, the average annual premium for $300,000 dwelling coverage is $5,728 in Florida, much higher than the national average of $2,397.
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