TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s insurance commissioner says the state’s property insurance market has improved dramatically from the brink of collapse a few years ago, but many homeowners facing steep premiums may see the picture far differently.
Speaking with reporters at Florida’s insurance summit in Tallahassee, Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky said he would now give the state’s market a “B.”
“Now I give it a, I give it a, B. I think we still have work to do,” Yaworsky said.
Asked if that meant the market had gone from a “D” to a “B,” he replied: “I think we went from an F.”
Yaworsky argued the market has improved sharply since 2022, when insurers were retreating, reinsurance costs were surging and Florida’s system was under intense strain. He credited the turnaround to litigation reforms, new insurers entering the market and rate growth he said has remained well below national trends.
“We had a .8% increase in the average rate for Floridians for the past two years,” Yaworsky said. “Rest of the country has seen 20, 30, 35%. Nebraska is now the most expensive place to insure in the country. It’s no longer Florida.”
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Still, the commissioner acknowledged the recovery has not been felt evenly across the state.
“There will always be parts of the state that are harder to ensure than others,” he said, citing geography, density and local conditions. He added that while some areas are improving faster than others, “you have to look at the state as a whole and see improvement that is taking place.”
That message collides with what many homeowners are still experiencing on the ground. In places like Tampa, some residents say premiums have climbed so sharply that they have dropped property insurance altogether. It’s underscoring the disconnect between state officials’ claims of market stabilization and the costs many Floridians still face.
Some reports have put Florida among the states with the highest share of uninsured homeowners in the country.
Yaworsky did not dispute that many consumers still are waiting to feel the benefits of the reforms.
“That just takes time,” he said. “It took eight years for us to go from a relatively healthy market in 2014 to a market on the brink of collapse in 2022 and so it’s taking time to to pull out of that.”
His advice to homeowners: “Shop around if you’re a consumer and hang in there. We know, we know it’s a challenge for everybody, but we’re working it hard.”
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Democrats, meanwhile, used a Wednesday press conference to argue that lawmakers should have done more this year on affordability and insurance relief instead of focusing on other political fights.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said “groceries, utilities and insurance costs are crushing our working families” and faulted Republican leaders for refusing “a single hearing on any of the 20 affordability bills Democrats put on the table.”
State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat, said the complaints his party is hearing from voters are straightforward.
“Everything is too expensive, and it’s getting worse.” He added, “Property insurance premiums are skyrocketing.”
Yaworsky said the state is continuing to monitor insurers closely and argued the market is moving in the right direction, even if many homeowners have yet to see meaningful relief in their bills.
He also said in future lawmaking sessions he would like to see legislation offering consumers more transparency about where their premium dollars are going and more credit for mitigation and resiliency improvements.
With a new governor and legislature set to take office next year, it’s unclear the appetite.
