Florida Gov. DeSantis speaks on market changes following insurance reform

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week that insurance reform in the state over the past couple of years has played a part in the top five auto insurance groups reducing rates, on average, by 6.5% this year.

He spoke in Orlando on Oct. 6 at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA)’s annual meeting. DeSantis said the insurance market also benefited from faster catastrophe recovery.

“As of the end of 2024, auto insurance had been arguably the most inflationary item of any of the baskets of things people look at for how households are being affected by inflation,” he said. “There’s not a lot of places in this country where you’re seeing declines in rates for auto insurance.”

DeSantis said Florida’s personal auto liability loss ratio is the lowest in the nation, at 53.3% as of the end of 2024, due to the reforms.

As of Sept. 30, DeSantis said Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation had received 59 rate filings for rate decreases and 87 filings for zero rate increases. He didn’t specify whether the filings were for auto or homeowner insurance, or both.

Before the recent reforms, DeSantis said Florida held 8% of all property insurance claims nationwide and accounted for 78% of all litigation nationwide.

“If somebody is harmed, they should have a right to go in and get a redress of the grievances, including monetary compensation,” he said. “But I think what we were seeing was someone would have a $50,000 claim and they’d end up with a judgment where the lawyer got $300,000 and then the person with the claim got $50,000. How is that a system that makes any sense?

“You cannot have a market that is that costly in terms of legal expenses and not have that impact on what individuals are having to pay for those policies. We really felt that addressing that anomaly would one, provide some stability to the market that would induce more businesses to want to come and offer people coverage. Then also, of course, if you were able to not have such a stiff amount of legal suits and costs… you would be able to see relief for the homeowners who desperately needed it, as those rates had gone up.”

DeSantis criticized an effort by the Florida House of Representatives during this year’s legislative session to roll back the reforms. He said that if they had succeeded, based on the House’s analysis, it would’ve caused rates to spike, some by as much as 50%.

In February, DeSantis announced that three major auto insurance companies planned to reduce rates in the state — GEICO (10.5% decrease), State Farm (6% decrease), and Progressive (8.1% decrease). A press release issued at the time from DeSantis’s office said tort reform was one reason for the lower rates.

Louisiana has also seen reduced rates by multiple auto insurance companies, according to Insurance Commissioner Timothy J. Temple. In August, the state’s DOI reported that more than 20 companies had filed for rate decreases since the beginning of the year. Fourteen of the filings were for decreases of more than 1%.

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Featured image: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (Provided by the Florida Executive Office of the Governor)

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