Florida Home Insurance Rates Rose 0.9% Last Year and Auto Rates Fell About 4%. The Actuaries Who Added It Up Were Hired by the Insurers.

Two states have dominated home insurance coverage this year for the same reason: prices that rose faster than households could absorb. Florida is now being presented as the counter-example. A report released on September 3 estimates that Floridians paid nearly $3 billion less in homeowners and auto premiums in 2025 than they did in 2024.

The report was prepared by Dave Moore of Moore Actuarial Consulting and James Lynch of James Lynch Casualty Actuary, a former chief actuary of the Insurance Information Institute. It was commissioned by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. That does not make the arithmetic wrong. It does mean the framing is an industry framing, and the report should be read that way.

The two numbers that are not the same number

There is a distinction in the report that is easy to blur. Rates and premiums moved in different directions.

• Homeowners rates rose 0.9% in 2025, after rising 1.3% in 2024 and 9.6% in 2023
• Auto rates fell about 4% in 2025
• Homeowners premiums written fell $1.29 billion, or 7%
• Auto premiums written fell $1.70 billion, or 5%

A rate is the price per unit of coverage that an insurer files with the state. Total written premium is what policyholders actually paid, which also moves with how many policies are in force, how much coverage each buys, and which insurer writes it. Homeowners rates rose slightly while homeowners premium fell 7%. Both statements are true, and only the second one is money in a household's pocket.

The report notes that written premium declined in both homeowners and auto in the same year for the first time since 2009.

The litigation story underneath

The report attributes the turn to legislative changes made in 2022 and 2023, which banned assignment-of-benefits agreements and one-way attorney fee awards in property claims. Both were mechanisms that made it economic to litigate small disputes.

• Between 2016 and 2023 Florida accounted for more than 70% of homeowners insurance lawsuits nationally while generating about 10% of claims
• Notices of pending litigation peaked above 8,500 in late 2021 and had fallen to roughly 2,500 by early 2026
• The ratio of defense costs to paid losses on homeowners claims fell from 2.4% in 2021 to 2% in 2025

Twenty insurers have entered the Florida market with more than $850 million of new capital, and Citizens Property Insurance - the state-run insurer of last resort - fell to roughly 3% of total insured value among admitted insurers writing wind coverage in 2025. Policyholder dividends rose 43%, to $211 million.

Florida's legal system abuse reforms are working as intended. Litigation is down, competition is increasing, market stability is improving.

A.M. Best, quoted in coverage of the report, described Florida as having become a role model for legislative regulatory relief rather than the poster child for abusive claims it had been.

Why this is not automatically a template

The Florida reforms addressed claims litigation. They did not change the weather. A market can look healthy through several quiet seasons and reprice sharply after one severe one, because catastrophe exposure is priced on expected losses across decades rather than on realised losses in a given year. The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet, which flatters any snapshot taken now.