In 2020, Florida accounted for 8.81% of the nation’s homeowners insurance claims and 79.16% of the nation’s homeowners insurance lawsuits. By 2025 those figures were 4.85% and 41.29%.
Both numbers are startling — the first because it’s hard to believe one state generated four out of five property insurance lawsuits in the country, the second because it’s a genuinely enormous drop. Those figures come from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s Property Insurance Stability Report, and they’re accurate.
They’re also more complicated than the way you’ll usually see them quoted. Since we’d rather you hear the real version from us, here it is.
What actually happened to Florida insurance litigation
The litigation collapse is real, and the clearest evidence isn’t the percentage everyone cites — it’s the raw count of lawsuits filed in Florida courts. Guy Carpenter compiled those from public court records for the first three quarters of each year:
- 2021: 67,788 suits
- 2022: 51,884
- 2023: 36,639
- 2024: 27,923
That’s a 59% decline, falling roughly a quarter every year. OIR reports filings fell another 25% in 2025 and again through May of 2026. Something big and durable changed in the Florida property insurance market.
Two things the headline number hides
First, the decline started before the reforms. The single largest year-over-year drop in that table is 2021 to 2022 — which happened before the December 2022 special session that produced SB 2-A, and before HB 837 in March 2023. Even attorneys on the plaintiff side who dispute the reforms’ benefits agree the trend began earlier. SB 76 in 2021 had already started tightening the rules, and carriers had already begun changing how they handled claims.
Second, 2025 was a year without hurricanes. It was the first year in a decade with no hurricane landfalls in the United States. Florida went from three landfalling storms in 2024 to none in 2025. That matters enormously for a statistic measured as a share of the national total, because Florida’s claim count collapses in a quiet year while other states keep filing claims — California alone generated nearly 20,000 residential claims from the January 2025 wildfires.
Look at the share of lawsuits year by year and the pattern is clear: 70.83% in 2022, 71.59% in 2023, 73.15% in 2024 — flat, even drifting up, across both full years after the reforms passed. The entire drop to 41.29% happened in a single year, 2024 to 2025. The reforms are doing real work. But that particular number is measuring the weather as much as it’s measuring the law.
What the reforms actually changed
Three bills did most of the work, and the mechanics are worth knowing because they explain why claims feel different now:
SB 76 (2021) shortened the window for filing a claim and restricted the solicitation practices that had roofing contractors knocking on doors after every storm.
SB 2-A (December 2022) eliminated one-way attorney fees for property insurance suits and ended assignment of benefits for property claims. One-way fees meant an insurer that lost a case paid the policyholder’s legal bills but a policyholder who lost paid nothing — an arrangement that made filing suit close to free and made settling almost always less expensive than defending.
HB 837 (March 2023) moved Florida to modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar and cut the statute of limitations for negligence from four years to two.
So why hasn’t my premium gone down?
This is the question we actually get, and it deserves a straight answer.
Some of the market news is genuinely good. Twenty-one new property insurers have entered Florida since the reforms. Citizens asked regulators for a 2.7% average decrease for 2026 and was granted 8.7% instead. Across recent filings, 44 companies requested decreases and 48 requested no increase at all. OIR reports premiums decreased in 51 of Florida’s 67 counties.
And yet plenty of homeowners opened a renewal this year that was higher than last year’s. Both things are true, for a few reasons.
A rate decrease is not a premium decrease. Your premium is a rate multiplied by your coverage amount. Rebuilding costs have risen steadily, so the amount of coverage on your home goes up every year whether you asked for it or not. A 5% rate cut applied to a 10% larger dwelling limit is still a bigger bill.
Your roof got a year older. Roof age drives Florida underwriting more than almost anything else, and it moves against you every single year.
Averages hide enormous variation. OIR puts the average Florida homeowners premium around $3,750. The comparison site Insurify puts it near $6,060 for the same period. They’re measuring different populations of houses. Neither is your house.
What we’d tell you to do about it
The practical consequence of 21 new carriers entering a market is that the spread between the best and worst quote on the same house is wider than it’s been in years. That’s the opportunity.
We represent about 15 home insurance companies, which is close to all of the ones actively writing in Florida right now. When we shop a house, we’re looking at that whole spread — and a home that was placed with one carrier three years ago, in a much harder market, is often the one with the most room to improve.
If your renewal came in higher and you’ve been assuming that’s just Florida, it’s worth twenty minutes to find out.
Call 941-312-5771. We’re at 62 Sarasota Center Blvd, Sarasota, Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.
Sources: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Property Insurance Stability Report, July 1, 2026 (claims and suits share, NAIC Market Conduct Annual Statement data) · Guy Carpenter analysis of Florida court filings · Citizens Property Insurance 2026 rate filing and OIR order · Insurance Information Institute, January 2026.
Related reading
- Why is my Florida home insurance so high?
- How to lower your Florida home insurance cost
- What is an independent insurance agency?
- All Florida insurance news and guides
Last reviewed August 26, 2026