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- Property insurance costs remain a top concern for Floridians despite legislative changes aimed at addressing the insurance crisis.
- While new insurers have entered the market and lawsuits against them have decreased, concerns about insurance costs have risen since last year.
Property insurance costs remain at the top of Floridians’ concerns two years after changes were made to address an ongoing insurance crisis, according to a new survey.
The state Legislature in December 2022 killed most of the incentive for policyholders to sue their insurers by enacting changes to the state’s tort laws because the Republican majority of lawmakers believed the state’s excessive litigation was the chief reason behind costs rising and insurance companies leaving the state.
Since then, the number of lawsuits against insurers has dropped and new insurers have entered the market, made more risky by the state’s vulnerability to hurricanes. Still, a poll from the Associated Industries of Florida’s Center for Political Strategy shows the reforms have failed to dislodge the cost of property insurance from atop of a list of rising costs Sunshine State residents are concerned about.
Thirty-three percent of Floridians surveyed ranked insurance costs as the most concerning among pocketbook issues, according to AIF’s Q1 2025 Statewide General Election Poll. Meanwhile, 21% said the cost of food and groceries are the most alarming and 11% put mortgage and rent at the top of their list.
Health care costs and auto insurance ranked as the fourth and fifth biggest concerns, but the number selecting those costs as most concerning did not break double digits among the 800 Floridian registered voters surveyed. Those surveyed qualify as likely to vote in the 2026 election.
The polling, which came in at a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, was conducted from Feb. 10 to Feb. 13 by McLaughlin & Associates, a national research and strategic services company based in New York. Interviews were collected using landlines, cellphones and SMS/text messaging to the web, according to a news release from AIF.
Rising concern in contrast to improved market conditions
The concerns appear to be rising, even though state leaders have highlighted improving insurance industry conditions in speeches and news conferences. AIF’s survey results in January 2024 showed 21% of those surveyed picked rising property insurance as the issue they were most concerned about — a statistical tie with worry about the rising overall cost of living.
Other results of the survey released Feb. 26 found:
- A generic Republican candidate for the Florida Legislature outperforms a generic Democratic legislative candidate by 7 percentage points (48% to 41%).
- Republicans perform better than Democrats on who respondents believe are most effective in issues facing the state, with a whopping 47% saying that Republicans can handle the economy better compared with the 22% who said Democrats could do it better. On insurance costs, though, the biggest percentage of survey respondents (42%) chose the option that neither party is doing an effective job lowering property and home insurance costs.
- A majority approve of President Donald Trump’s performance in the first weeks of his administration, with 53% saying they approve and 45% saying they “strongly approve.”
Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at ageggis@gannett.com.Help support our journalism. Subscribe today
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.