Florida has “the highest” homeowners insurance in the nation.
ST. JOHNS, Fla., June 23, 2022—With its overabundance of unneeded new roofs on homes, and flashy lawyer billboards at every turn claiming massive settlements on claims, Florida’s insurance market is on the verge of failure. Even more, this man-made catastrophe is causing financial strain on resident consumers, as the annual cost of an average Florida homeowners insurance policy will skyrocket to $4,231 in 2022, nearly three times more than the U.S. annual average of $1,544, according to an Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) analysis. "Floridians pay the highest homeowners insurance premiums in the nation for reasons having little to do with their exposure to hurricanes," said Sean Kevelighan, CEO, Triple-I. "Floridians are seeing homeowners insurance become costlier and scarcer because for years the state has been the home of too much litigation and too many fraudulent roof replacement schemes. These two factors contributed enormously to the net underwriting losses Florida’s homeowners insurers cumulatively incurred between 2016 and 2021." [...] The typical Florida homeowners insurance policyholder paid $2,505 for coverage in 2020, the Triple-I found, and that figure rose to $3,181 in 2021. Triple-I’s analysis was based on data and analyses from Florida’s OIR, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), and Triple-I’s estimates of what insurers are paying today for home replacement costs (e.g., lumber).