Florida Premium Written up by a Third, Average Premiums Up by 40% Since 2022

Newly posted data from Florida regulators show that, in the last three years, the number of property insurance policies in the state has risen only slightly while direct premium written and average premiums have climbed significantly.

The first-quarter 2025 data from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, when compared to the last quarter of 2022 – the period just before state lawmakers approved far-reaching statutory changes – gives a snapshot of the market and what has changed since the litigation-limiting reforms were enacted.

The data includes personal residential and commercial residential lines. The personal residential policies listed include all types, such as condominium unit, mobile home, dwelling-fire, and renters’ insurance, OIR noted. Here are some highlights as analyzed by Insurance Journal and veterans of the Florida insurance industry:

• Overall, the number of policies in force climbed to almost 7.6 million. That’s only about a 4% increase from Q4 2022. By comparison, Florida’s population has increased about 3% in that time, but the number of homes in the state grew by double digits, according to the U.S. Census, the Federal Reserve, and other sources.
• Total direct premium written climbed to about $23 billion, almost a 40% increase since 2022.
• Dividing total premium by policies in force shows the average premium reached $3,023 this year, a 34% increase from Q4 2022. To compare: Nationally, prices for all goods and services rose about 8% in that time frame.
• Among the 30 insurers with the highest policy counts, the average premium increases ranged from a low of 2.5% for ASI Preferred Insurance to highs of 53% for Olympus Insurance, 65% for Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, and 80% for Homesite Insurance.
• Averages can be skewed by a few outlying numbers, types of properties covered, and other factors. But the raw OIR data gives a general indication of trends. The report shows that average annual premiums for the top 30 carriers, excluding those that write mostly tenants’ insurance, ranged from a low of $1,685 for American Traditions Insurance and $1,973 for American Strategic Insurance Corp., to a high of about $5,600 for Olympus and for TypTap Insurance.
• Some insurers shed policies while others added, partly through takeouts of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. policies and through assumptions of policies left behind by a few insolvent carriers. Slide Insurance has grown more than any other carrier, with a 254% increase in policies in force since 2022, followed by Florida Peninsula Insurance, with 111% growth in policies.
• Citizens has depopulated significantly in the 30-month period, dropping more than 25% of its policies and trimming its direct premium written by some 13%, the data show. Citizens also raised its rates about 18% during the time frame, as allowed by statute and OIR.

The database included all personal lines policies, but was not broken down by policy type. That’s why American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, and American Modern Home Insurance, which write heavily in renters’ coverage, both reported average annual premiums of less than $205.

While some homeowners, attorneys, Florida lawmakers and members of Congress have recently bashed insurance carriers for raising rates, insurers from 2016 to 2023 blamed excessive claims litigation costs for forcing repeated rate increases, something Florida lawmakers addressed with sweeping reform legislation in 2022 and 2023. But since then, some costs have continued to put upward pressure on premiums, one longtime Florida analyst said.

“Premium increases, even where policy counts have decreased, are largely being driven by inflation in construction replacement costs and increases in reinsurance costs and/or the required reinsurance capacity needed to mitigate against solvency risks,” said Paul Handerhan, president of the Federal Association for Insurance Reform, an advocacy group that has tracked the Florida market for years.

He noted that things are beginning to balance out for the industry. Underwriting development has trended in a positive direction recently. The AM Best financial rating firm reported in May that, after eight years of losses, Florida’s personal property insurance market reported an underwriting profit in 2024.

The full quarterly OIR report, in Excel spreadsheet, can be accessed here. A separate database, available on the same OIR site, has data broken down by policy type, by company.

The reports are based on data provided each quarter by insurers and are known as the Quarterly Supplemental Reports (QUASR). Incidentally, in keeping with recent statutory changes, OIR has discontinued the quarterly reporting and now requires insurers to report monthly data. The monthly personal residential and commercial residential (known as PMIR) reporting, using form OIR-D0-1185, requires the following data for each ZIP code:

• Total number of policies in force at the end of each month;
• Total number of policies canceled;
• Total number of policies nonrenewed;
• Number of policies canceled due to hurricane risk;
• Number of policies nonrenewed due to hurricane risk;
• Number of new policies written;
• Total dollar value of structure exposure under policies that include wind coverage;
• Number of policies that exclude wind coverage;
• Number of claims open each month;
• Number of claims closed each month;
• Number of claims pending each month; and
• Number of claims in which either the insurer or insured invoked any form of alternative dispute resolution, and specifying which form of alternative dispute resolution was used.

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