Insurers and Their Legislative Allies Sold a Lie, Trying To Export This Failed Model to Other States
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three years after Florida’s Republican lawmakers passed and Governor DeSantis signed sweeping tort reform legislation promising to reduce litigation and lower home insurance rates, neither has come true. A new Bloomberg opinion exposes the devastating truth: the home insurance industry’s signature policy achievement has spectacularly backfired at policyholders’ expense.
In Florida, lawsuits against insurers have surged, not fallen, premiums are still the highest in the nation, and claim denial rates have exploded, leaving thousands of Florida homeowners unable to rebuild after disasters while insurers post record profits.
“This wasn’t just another policy failure from elected officials. This was a fraudulent effort pushed by the home insurance industry and championed by bought-and-paid-for Republicans,” said Jayson O’Neill, Unlocking America’s Future spokesperson. “Home insurance companies and their lobbyists leveraged the climate crisis to convince legislators to strip away consumer protections, making the problem worse for homeowners and maximizing their profits. And now they want to do this to the rest of America.”
Insurers’ Numbers Don’t Lie:
According to independent analysis by Weiss Ratings using National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) data, the lawsuit rate in Florida’s property insurance market has risen dramatically since tort reform passed:
- 2022 (pre-reform): 124 lawsuits per 1,000 denied claims
- 2024 (first year post-reform): 129 lawsuits per 1,000 denied claims
- 2025 (second year post-reform): 143 lawsuits per 1,000 denied claims
There has been a 15% increase in litigation rates since Florida’s tort reforms were implemented, despite the new barriers limiting policyholders’ ability to hold their insurer accountable. It is the exact opposite of what insurers and politicians promised when advocating for tort reform.
Denials Up, Premiums Up, Homeowners Down:
While insurers claimed tort reform would benefit consumers, the opposite has occurred:
- Claim denial rates jumped from 30% in 2023 to 40% in 2024—a 33% increase in denials after tort reform made it harder for homeowners to fight back in court.
- Florida homeowners continue paying the highest insurance premiums in the nation, averaging $8,292 annually—more than triple the national average and outpacing the second highest premium state, Louisiana, by $3,242 per year.
- Premiums continued rising despite industry promises that tort reform would bring relief.
- Insurers have made over $400 billion in profits over the last three years and net nearly $9 million per day by delaying claim payments while families, small businesses, and renters struggled to recover from more frequent and severe climate-driven disasters.
Similar stories are playing out in Texas, and in other states where elected officials are signing onto home insurance lobby anti-consumer efforts instead of finding real solutions for their constituents.
The “Frivolous Lawsuit” Lie Exposed:
The insurance industry’s central argument for tort reform rested on a simple claim: Homeowners and their attorneys were filing frivolous lawsuits that drove up costs for everyone. But if tort reform successfully weeded out frivolous cases by imposing new barriers to litigation, lawsuit rates should have plummeted.
Instead, they increased, because homeowners are filing legitimate lawsuits against home insurers who are wrongfully denying valid claims. When tort reform made it harder to sue, insurers simply denied more claims under the protective legislation, yet desperate homeowners with strong cases continued fighting in court despite the new obstacles.
A National Threat: Don’t Let This Happen to Your State
Most alarming, home insurance industry lobbyists are now pushing similar tort reform legislation in states across the country and created a fancy toolkit, cynically citing Florida as a “success story” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Minnesota home insurance task force recommended the state legislature study and consider similar anti-consumer policies after the home insurance industry lobbied members.
An overwhelming 86% of residents across the Midwest and South support homeowners’ rights to sue home insurance companies that deny, delay, or underpay claims, according to recent polling from The Insurance Fairness Project and Climate Power. Real solutions must focus on policyholders and address the actual problems: worsening losses from natural disasters driven by the climate crisis, insurer business practices of delay, deny, and defend that prioritize profit over their policyholders, and inadequate regulatory oversight. Consumers have a right to access the courts and hold bad-acting insurers accountable, and that must not be restricted.
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