Florida Home Insurance Prices Increasingly a Burden for Residents

“As Florida’s property insurance market continues to buckle, thousands of homeowners across the state are increasingly choosing to forgo insurance, sell their homes or even leave Florida,” reports Mary Ellen Klas for the Miami Herald.

Tasha Carter, Florida’s insurance consumer advocate, is cited in the article issuing the warning about the increasing costs of climate change mitigation for Florida residents—and its increasing likelihood to drive out-migration from risky locations around the state.

Carter issued the warning as the state’s legislators gathered for a special session likely to increase insurance rates to stabilize the market.

“Florida’s property insurance market has seen double-digit percentage increases for the past few years,” according to the article. Rep. Tom Leek, an Ormond Beach Republican who is sponsoring the House insurance proposal, is quoted in the article explaining the intended goal of the special session.

“He said the package of proposals — to reduce the financial incentives for attorneys to file lawsuits against insurers, give homeowners less time to file a claim and create a $1 billion taxpayer-funded program to provide backup insurance for struggling insurers — will eventually lead to lower property insurance premiums,” writes Klas.

Meanwhile, the state’s governor remains committed to subsidizing behaviors that emit the most greenhouse gases.

Another Miami Herald article by Nicolas Rivero, published a few days later, also reveals the increasing demand for another form of protection—water pumps.

“[P]umps are an integral part of plans to help save South Florida from flooding. Thanks to climate change, stormwater systems here — and around the world — are coming under growing strain. In some cases, they’re starting to fail,” according to Rivero.

Despite Carter’s warning about residents leaving the state and the increasing cost of home insurance and mitigation measures in the state, Florida’s population growth led the nation in 2022.