Florida home insurance, tracked.
Insurance comes up in almost every conversation I have with buyers and owners, and the story keeps changing. This page is the running log: what happened, when, and which direction it pushed premiums.
- 2026-06Costs easing
Citizens rates head down for most homeowners
Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer, moved into an average statewide rate decrease for 2026 personal lines policies, the first broad decrease since the crisis years. Many Tampa Bay policyholders are seeing single-digit percentage cuts at renewal, with the exact change varying by county and policy type.
- 2025Costs easing
New carriers keep entering the market
A wave of newly approved insurers began writing Florida policies through 2024 and 2025, the clearest sign the 2022 reforms changed the underwriting math. More carriers competing means more homeowners can get quotes outside Citizens, and shopping around started producing real savings again.
- 2024Structural
Citizens depopulation accelerates
Citizens' policy count fell from a peak of roughly 1.4 million in late 2023 to under a million, as private carriers took over policies through the state's depopulation program. If you got a takeout offer letter, that was this program at work.
- 2022-12Structural
The legal reforms that changed the trajectory
Special-session legislation (SB 2-A) eliminated one-way attorney's fees and assignment-of-benefits claims, the two mechanics insurers blamed for Florida's outsized litigation costs. Almost every improvement since traces back to this change, though it took about two years to show up in actual premiums.
- 2022-09Costs rising
Hurricane Ian resets the market
Ian's landfall produced one of the costliest insured-loss events in U.S. history and pushed reinsurance costs sharply higher for every Florida carrier. Premium increases through 2023 and 2024, including for homeowners nowhere near the damage, largely trace to this repricing.
Directional log, not a rate quote. Premiums vary by home, roof age, and flood zone; always price your specific address.
What this means for your payment
When I run numbers with buyers, insurance is the line item with the widest swing: a newer-roof home outside a flood zone might quote $2,500 a year while an older roof near the water quotes three times that. That difference moves a monthly payment more than a quarter point of mortgage rate.
If you're budgeting a purchase, get a real quote during your inspection period, and run it through the calculator with the rest of the carrying costs rather than guessing.
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The ones that decide whether a house fits the budget.
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