Florida’s insurance crisis gave Democrats ammunition for years.
They blamed Republicans for skyrocketing premiums.
And Ron DeSantis handed Democrats one nasty surprise that has them scrambling for answers.
How bad the crisis got before DeSantis fixed it
Back in 2022 and 2023, Florida homeowners were getting destroyed by insurance costs that nobody could control.
Rates jumped 33% in 2022 alone — four times the national average increase.¹
Homeowners in Pinellas County paid nearly $3,000 per year while Hillsborough County residents watched premiums surge from $2,500 to $3,500.²
Citizens Property Insurance — Florida’s insurer of last resort — exploded from 750,000 policies to over 1.2 million as private insurers fled the state.³
Eleven insurance companies went bankrupt between 2017 and 2023.⁴
Car insurance rates soared 30% in a single year with some policyholders seeing increases as high as 57%.⁵
Florida accounted for only 7% of U.S. property claims but over 75% of all litigated property insurance claims nationwide.⁶
That’s not a typo — Florida had more insurance lawsuits than the other 49 states combined.
The scam worked like this: shady contractors would knock on doors after storms, convince homeowners to sign over their insurance benefits, then file inflated claims and sue when insurers pushed back.
Since homeowners weren’t liable for attorney fees under Florida’s one-way fee system, lawyers had zero reason not to sue over every claim.
The state became what DeSantis called a "judicial hellhole" where attorneys made fortunes filing frivolous lawsuits that drove insurance companies into bankruptcy.⁷
DeSantis demolished the lawsuit racket and insurers came flooding back
DeSantis attacked the root cause — Florida’s legal system that incentivized endless litigation.
In December 2022, he signed SB 2A eliminating one-way attorney fees and banning Assignment of Benefits contracts on all policies issued after January 1, 2023.⁸
That killed the financial incentive for contractors and attorneys to file bogus lawsuits.
In March 2023, DeSantis signed HB 837 reducing the statute of limitations for negligence lawsuits from four years to two years.⁹
Auto glass repair lawsuits collapsed from 24,720 in Q2 2023 to just 2,613 in Q2 2024 — a 90% drop.¹⁰
Now DeSantis announced the results in Sarasota this week.
Progressive Insurance hit its profit limits under state regulations, triggering nearly $1 billion in mandatory credits flowing back to customers.¹¹
"Thanks to Commissioner Michael Yaworsky, he has secured almost a billion dollars in credits for Progressive auto insurance policyholders," DeSantis stated.¹²
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1981010692045201825
The top five auto insurers averaged 6.5% rate drops this year.¹³
Allstate requested a 7% decrease, Liberty Mutual asked for 5%, and State Farm filed for a 4% reduction.¹⁴
Florida Peninsula Insurance requested an 8.4% rate decrease for homeowners and 12% for condo owners — the biggest reduction in the company’s modern history.¹⁵
Seventeen new insurance companies entered Florida since the reforms passed.¹⁶
Since 2024, companies covering homes and condos have either filed for rate decreases or requested no changes.¹⁷
Democrats want to undo DeSantis’s reforms and bring back the lawsuit lottery
Senate Democrats held a Monday press conference demanding more insurance regulation — code for reversing the reforms that actually worked.
Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith claimed homeowners need protection from insurance companies.
"Look, we heard a lot of big talk about holding insurance companies accountable for what they’ve been doing to policyholders, it’s time for action," Smith announced.¹⁸
Democrats filed bills proposing rate caps on insurance increases, expanding government power over private companies, and creating new bureaucracies.¹⁹
Senator Barbara Sharief’s SB 30 would cap rate increases at 10% per filing and 15% over 12 months while giving the consumer advocate subpoena power.²⁰
Senator Lori Berman wants an Insurance Solutions Advisory Council to tell insurers what rates they can charge.²¹
Some Democrats are even pushing to restore one-way attorney fees — the exact scam DeSantis eliminated that caused the crisis in the first place.²²
DeSantis understands what Democrats refuse to accept about insurance markets.
"People think, you know, since you’ve signed a bill into law, the next day they’re like, ‘Where’s the result?’ Well, it’s going to take time," DeSantis explained.²³
Democrats want voters to believe more government control will force insurance companies to lower rates.
That’s exactly backward.
Pile enough regulations on insurers and they’ll stop writing policies in Florida altogether — which is precisely what happened before DeSantis’s reforms.
The litigation reforms didn’t add regulations — they removed the government-created incentives for frivolous lawsuits.
DeSantis made Florida attractive to insurers again by stopping the legal extortion racket that was bankrupting companies and driving up costs for everyone.
Democrats had years to fix Florida’s insurance crisis when premiums were skyrocketing 33% annually and companies were going bankrupt.
They did nothing except protect the trial lawyers who funded their campaigns.
Now DeSantis delivered nearly $1 billion in relief to Progressive customers, rate decreases from major insurers across the board, and 17 new companies competing for Florida business.
Democrats are scrambling because their lawsuit-friendly policies created the disaster and DeSantis proved free market reforms work better than government control.
The nearly $1 billion in Progressive credits and rate decreases from major insurers show DeSantis’s strategy is delivering real relief to Florida homeowners and drivers — not the empty promises Democrats are peddling.
¹ Ty Russell, "DeSantis: Progressive to issue nearly $1 billion in credits to Florida policyholders," WFLA, October 23, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ "Trends and Insights: Addressing Florida’s Property/Casualty Insurance Crisis," Insurance Information Institute, February 15, 2023.
⁵ Giulia Carbonaro, "Florida Car Insurance Crisis as Rates Shoot Up 30% in a Year," Newsweek, October 27, 2023.
⁶ "Governor signs property insurance reform bill that would end one-way attorney fees," Florida Record, December 16, 2022.
⁷ "DeSantis signs monumental insurance bill," Insurance Business America, March 27, 2023.
⁸ "Florida Enacts Sweeping Property Insurance Reform," WSHB Law, December 16, 2022.
⁹ "DeSantis signs bill to shield businesses and insurance companies from lawsuits," WLRN, March 24, 2023.
¹⁰ "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Rate Reductions," Florida Executive Office of the Governor, 2025.
¹¹ Russell.
¹² – ¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ "Florida Democrats propose property insurance overhaul," MyNews13, October 8, 2025.
²⁰ "Florida Democrats propose bills to tackle soaring home insurance costs," Insurance Business America, October 2025.
²¹ "Insurance bills would lower Floridians’ costs, Democrats say," South Florida Sun Sentinel, October 9, 2025.
²² "Here’s what lawmakers could change about property insurance," Florida Phoenix, March 3, 2025.
²³ Russell.
