Florida Insurance Rates Are Finally Dropping. Here’s How to Make Sure You Actually Save.

For the past four years, renewal season in this office has mostly meant softening bad news. This spring is different. Regulators have approved the first meaningful Citizens rate decrease in years, dozens of private home and auto carriers have filed cuts of their own, and the reductions started reaching renewal notices this spring. The catch: almost none of it lands in your mailbox automatically. The numbers below are real — but whether you see them depends on what you do at renewal.

What was actually approved

In January, Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation signed off on new Citizens Property Insurance rates with a statewide average reduction of 8.7%. More than 330,000 policyholders across all 67 counties will see a decrease, and over 150,000 of them will see cuts of 10% or more. The new rates apply at renewal, beginning with policies renewing in spring 2026.

South Florida, which carried the worst of the litigation-driven pricing of the last cycle, gets the largest share:

• Broward County: about 27,000 homes, average reduction of 14.1%
• Miami-Dade County: about 42,000 homes, average reduction of 14.0%
• Palm Beach County: about 26,000 homes, average reduction of 11.9%
• Monroe County: average reduction of 11.3%, plus more than 8,000 wind-only policies seeing a cut or no increase

For perspective on how unusual this is: in early 2022, Citizens’ own actuaries calculated it needed homeowners rate increases of more than 91%. As recently as mid-2025, its board was requesting the maximum 15% increase the law allows. A Citizens board filing for a decrease — and regulators approving a larger one — is a reversal almost nobody in this industry would have predicted three years ago.

The private market is cutting too

Citizens is the headline, but the private market is moving in the same direction. Recent homeowners filings include Florida Peninsula at -8.2%, Security First at -8%, Universal Property & Casualty at -5.1%, and Heritage at -3.3%, while Patriot Select reports cutting average premiums about 11.3%. Behind those numbers: 17 new insurance companies have entered Florida since the reforms, and Citizens has handed policies back to the private market at the fastest pace in a decade — roughly 395,000 policies in force in January, about half what it carried a year earlier and its lowest count in 14 years.

That competition is the real story for your wallet. During the hard market, shopping a Florida home often produced one or two reluctant quotes. Today the spread between the best and worst quote on the same house can be wide — which means the savings go to the people who compare, not to the people who renew on autopilot.

Auto rates are falling at the same time

Home gets the attention, but the auto filings have been just as aggressive: State Farm at -10.1% (roughly -20% cumulative across its recent filings), Progressive at -8% on top of more than $1 billion in policyholder refunds, AAA down about 15% across three separate cuts, Florida Farm Bureau at -8.7%, and USAA at -7%. If your auto policy has renewed at the same premium two years running, treat that as a flag, not a comfort. Re-shopping auto and home together also puts multi-policy discounts on the table.

Why this is happening

The December 2022 reforms eliminated one-way attorney fees and assignment-of-benefits agreements — the two mechanisms that had made Florida the national capital of insurance litigation. Lawsuit filings have fallen sharply since 2021, actual storm losses have come in below projections, and reinsurance (the insurance that insurers buy) has gotten cheaper. Those costs flow directly into rates, which is why relief is showing up across home, auto, and even workers’ compensation — now nine consecutive years of decreases on the workers’ comp side.

Why your bill might not drop on its own

1. The headline numbers are averages

An 8.7% statewide average includes homes getting 20% cuts and homes getting nothing. What your home in Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, or Miami actually qualifies for depends on its roof age, construction, wind mitigation features, and claims history — which is exactly why two neighbors can get very different renewals this year.

2. A renewal is not a quote

Your carrier reprices its own book at renewal. It does not check whether one of those 17 new carriers wants your business more than it does. In a market this competitive, the renewal offer is a starting point — the market price is whatever the best of a dozen carriers will actually write.

3. If you’re with Citizens, expect takeout offers

Depopulation is accelerating, and a rate cut doesn’t pause it. If a private carrier’s takeout offer comes within 20% of your Citizens premium, you generally lose eligibility to stay. We covered how to read and compare those offers in our takeout-offer guide.

4. Commercial is the exception

One honest caveat: Citizens has requested a 10.4% average increase for commercial lines for late 2026, because its commercial rates are still below actuarially sound levels. If you own a business, the rising-competition logic still applies — private carriers are stepping up commercial takeouts — but don’t expect the automatic relief homeowners are seeing. It’s a year to have your business coverage re-shopped, not auto-renewed.

The new roof rule could reopen doors

One more change worth knowing. House Bill 815, which applies to policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2026, bars insurers from refusing to write or renew a home solely because of the roof’s age. Under 15 years, age alone can’t be the reason for a refusal. At 15 years or older, you have the right to an inspection — and if an authorized inspector finds at least five years of useful life remaining, the insurer can’t turn the home away over the roof. If you’ve spent the last few years stuck with one carrier because everyone else balked at your roof, your options likely reopen this summer.

The bottom line

The Florida market is finally moving in your favor, and the movement is real: approved filings, falling litigation, new carriers competing for business that nobody wanted three years ago. But approved averages don’t pay your premium — your specific renewal does. The homeowners who save the most this year will be the ones who treat the renewal notice as an invitation to shop, not a bill to pay.

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