FLORIDA – In response to Governor Ron DeSantis’s announcement that Citizens Property Insurance policyholders will receive lower premiums with a statewide average reduction of 8.7%, Unlocking America’s Future is calling out the Governor’s pattern of making false promises to Florida homeowners while the state’s insurance crisis continues to devastate families. Lower premiums mean nothing if homeowners can’t actually use their insurance when they need it – and right now, Citizens is winning almost all coverage disputes.
While the Governor claims that reducing lawsuits has helped lower premiums, what he fails to mention is that Citizens routes disputed claims to a special state-run alternative dispute court, the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH), where it wins more than 90% of cases, denying policyholders their right to a jury trial. In stark contrast, Citizens wins only 55% of cases in regular circuit courts where homeowners have access to juries.
“Governor DeSantis needs to stop protecting the insurance companies funding his political operation and start protecting Florida families. A modest premium reduction means nothing when Citizens wins over 90% of disputed claims in its rigged state-run court while losing nearly half the time when homeowners get access to a jury,” said Kyle Herrig, Unlocking America’s Future spokesperson. “This system is designed to deny families who’ve paid their premiums for years the coverage they deserve when disaster strikes. DeSantis’s latest announcement is just another attempt to distract from the fact that Florida homeowners are being crushed while insurance executives pocket millions.”
This isn’t the first time DeSantis has made claims about Florida’s insurance market that don’t match reality. The Governor championed 2023 tort reform legislation that was supposed to lower premiums for homeowners, but instead premiums continued to rise and insurance companies have been emboldened to deny legitimate claims. Florida homeowners have seen their insurance premiums skyrocket 54% since 2019, and 20% of Florida homeowners don’t have home insurance at all because they simply can’t afford it. Meanwhile, insurance executives like Slide Insurance’s CEO Bruce Lucas and his wife pulled in over $50 million in compensation in 2024 alone, even as their policyholders faced steep premium increases.
The reality is that Florida’s insurance crisis continues unabated. In 2024, 14 Florida property insurers closed more than 50% of the claims filed by homeowners without paying a penny to cover damages. Insurance companies have exploited regulatory loopholes through affiliate companies to extract billions in profits while claiming losses to justify rate increases. Until DeSantis addresses the fundamental problems in Florida’s insurance market, Florida families will continue to suffer.
As Public Citizen’s “The Tort Reform Racket” report documents, Florida’s insurance crisis is not an isolated problem but part of a coordinated national strategy by the home insurance sector and their lobbyists to systematically push “reforms” that strip away protections and shift costs onto everyday families.
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