ORLANDO – Florida’s insurance landscape is a $9 trillion marketplace. With nearly two years since the passage of important homeowners’ insurance reform legislation and following three recent hurricanes, the hope is that insurance rates will come down. But with hurricanes Milton and Helene, Floridians can’t seem to get a break.

We went to the state’s head of insurance to get a better understanding of what is happening in the industry right now and what kind of relief homeowners will be getting. Michael Yaworsky was nominated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and appointed by the Financial Services Commission to serve as the Florida insurance commissioner in March 2023. Some say it’s one of the toughest jobs in the state. One of first questions was whether rates would ever be as low as they were before hurricanes Ian and Nicole back in 2022. “So, there is the possibility they could go back down before they went so high, so what we’re seeing is a really positive reaction in the marketplace. We’ve met with a number of reinsurers this year,” he said.

“This past year was the first time that we saw an actual reduction in the cost of reinsurance, which is about 45 to 55% of every homeowner’s premium. So, there is there is rate relief that we’re seeing that decrease begin to take place. How low it will go is it depends on a number of factors, including what Mother Nature throws at us in coming years. So it’s impossible to say exactly.”

With many Floridians still suffering from the effects of hurricanes Milton and Helene, we asked if those storms would cause rates to go up.

“We’ve got a stable marketplace. At this point, companies are well situated to absorb the impacts of hurricanes Milton and Helene, which is why we’re currently looking at market accountability to make sure that the companies are doing what they were told, what they what they promised to do, and paying claims as required by Florida law on their contracts,” Yaworsky said. “As we’re looking forward about the rate impact of these companies, we don’t expect much of an impact. These were well-baked in events. We pay, as Floridians, we pay a good amount of premium and it’s precisely for hurricanes, and other events were baked in and expected to happen periodically in the state.”

After some years of instability, more insurance companies are coming to Florida and State Farm is now the largest here. The hope is that more will get on board.

“We, in the past year and a half, we’ve had ten new companies enter our marketplace with over $1.2 billion in capital that have entered the market. They’re seeing the potential of where we are as a state in what we can provide. We ultimately want a profitable industry, but a fair industry to consumers, and we want to make sure that we get there,” he said.

Commissioner Yaworsky said he wants to know about serious problems people are having with claims.

You can also let us know. The commissioner will be back in town in a couple of weeks for the Florida Chamber of Commerce Annual Insurance Summit and we will take your questions to him. The CEO of Citizens will also be here, so we will also try to catch up with him.

The summit brings together a distinguished lineup of industry leaders, lawmakers, regulators, and insurance professionals.

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