Plus, homeowners going bare
A court upholds the way Citizens Property Insurance settles its claims disputes, there’s a growing number of Floridians who have been going without homeowners insurance, plus the success story of Florida’s recent insurance consumer and litigation reforms are flashing on television and computer screens in New York. It’s all in this week’s Property Insurance News.
Citizens Property Insurance: A Leon County Circuit Court judge has ruled that Citizens alternative dispute resolution program through the state Division of Administration Hearings (DOAH) does not violate due process or other constitutional rights of its policyholders. The program began in early 2023 and allows Citizens and policyholders to resolve claims disputes much faster than overburdened state courts (90 days on average, instead of almost two years). This quick resolution saves both sides considerable attorney’s fees and costs. Citizens President & CEO Tim Cerio reported this past December that the majority of DOAH cases have been resolved through voluntary settlement (89%); that includes 52% of the cases where the insured accepted a nominal settlement amount ($500 or less). An effort to allow policyholders to opt-out of the arbitration program passed in the Florida House this session but died in the Senate. This program, together with the Florida legislature’s 2022 & 2023 insurance consumer and litigation reforms, have decreased Citizens’ lawsuits by about 55% and resulted in an average 8.7% statewide drop in its 2026 rates.
Source: LendingTree
Homeowners Going Bare: Lagging metrics show the importance of bringing costs down. A new study by LendingTree shows nearly 20% of Florida homes were uninsured in 2024, the sixth-highest percentage in the country according to the latest available figures. That’s an 8% increase from 2023. The Lakeland area saw the largest increase (up 45.7%) of those without homeowners insurance, with 28% total uninsured. Other areas that ranked high include Miami (22.5% uninsured), Tampa (19.1%), and Cape Coral (18.6%). Nationwide in 2024, nearly one in seven homes (14.1%) were going bare. Experts say affordability has been a big reason. “Many people who go without home insurance aren’t ignoring the risks, they’re making a trade-off they feel they can’t avoid,” said LendingTree home insurance expert Lindsay Bishop. “Rising home insurance rates are making home insurance harder to afford, especially for people on fixed incomes.”
Screenshot of the PACT television ad. Courtesy PACT
The Floridization of New York? We recently reported on the effort in the New York state legislature to better understand and find ways to reduce homeowners insurance rates. It included an all-day public hearing where Florida’s success story was repeatedly mentioned as the standard for how to reform an insurance market at scale: specifically, Assignment of Benefits (AOB) reform and ending one-way attorney fees that incentivize excessive litigation. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial afterward, Florida’s Insurance Reform Lesson for New York, outlined New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s recently announced plan to likewise curb excessive litigation and fraud. Now, a television campaign has begun to help educate New York residents, referencing “Reform worked for Florida.” The ad, titled “New York, It’s Your Turn,” is the second in the campaign by the group Protecting American Consumers Together (PACT). It’s running statewide on the MSG Network during Knicks games this month. PACT also released a digital ad called “The Highway Billboard Tax” detailing how highway lawyer billboards contribute to higher prices statewide. You can read more here.
LMA Newsletter of 3-16-26
