How property insurance premiums shot up when Rick Scott was governor

As Scott continues to cast blame for the state’s property insurance crisis on “the last five years,” a look at his time as governor reveals that premium costs increased dramatically while the amount of coverage declined during his tenure. 

“My property insurance is bundled with my mortgage, and it went up about two thousand dollars for the year,” Alexandra Rincones, a freelance copy editor from Miami, told Floricua. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she worries. “Just bracing for next year, I guess.”

Others, like Arnaldo Pérez-Miró, are looking to sell “as quickly as possible” and move to a place he and his wife can afford.

“My property insurance almost tripled. That is insane! How can I retire and afford almost $7,000 a year in home insurance?” Pérez-Miró told Floricua, as the cost to insure his home became prohibitive.

Rincones and Pérez-Miró represent just two of the thousands of Floridians who have seen their property insurance costs skyrocket in the past year. In fact, Florida homeowners paid an average annual rate of $10,996 in 2023, which is more than four times the national average of $2,377. 

Rick Scott, the junior senator from Florida running for reelection in November, has been quick to assign blame for the property insurance crisis, and it is clear to where he is pointing.

In an op-ed published in The Tampa Times, Scott wrote that “over the last five years, Florida’s property insurance market has gotten way out of control,” which is roughly the time that Ron DeSantis has been governor.

A problem long in the making

What Scott fails to mention when he talks about the crisis, is that the problem has been longer than a decade in the making. 

“Florida is the most expensive in the nation for home insurance.” 

If anyone needs proof that Florida’s property insurance crisis has been long coming, is this newspaper headline from Florida’s The Gainesville Sun dating from 2013. Data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for that same year ranked Florida as having the most expensive homeowner’s insurance in the nation. 

Scott, who was governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019, came into office in 2011 looking to reduce the high number of Citizens policies by turning to the private insurance market. 

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At the time, Scott repeatedly said that Citizens Property Insurance Corporation – which was created in 2002 to provide both windstorm coverage and general property insurance for homeowners who could not obtain insurance elsewhere – was underfunded. 

For this reason, in his first year in office, Scott signed Senate Bill 408, despite critics’ warnings that the legislation allowed a reduction in overall coverage limits, shortened the window for filing sinkhole and storm-related damage claims, and limited claims for damage caused by sinkholes to primary structures, among other things.

Insurance companies and business groups praised the bill, which also made carriers file requests with the regulation office for rate increases up to 15 percent to account for higher reinsurance costs. 

The controversial bill made changes to the insurance industry and allowed rates to increase and coverage to be restricted. For its part, the insurance industry says these changes were necessary to remain solvent after dealing with a host of factors, including two very active hurricane seasons and high reinsurance costs. 

“During Scott’s tenure, premiums rose while the amount of coverage declined,” says Charlie Crist, the former state governor who ran against Scott in 2014. 

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It is true that premiums rose under Rick Scott’s governorship. It is also true that the problem has been further compounded under Gov. DeSantis’ watch, with home insurance premiums rising dramatically. 

In fact, they escalated after a special legislative session in May 2022, when Republican lawmakers approved a $2 billion reinsurance reserve which protects insurers from bankruptcy in the event of a cataclysmic event. 

Despite the promise that this move would provide economic relief for consumers, costs for policyholders have risen and rate increases have outpaced any savings derived from the fund.

Looking for solutions

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is running to unseat Rick Scott in November, says that if she is elected to serve in Washington next year, her top priority would be to sponsor a bill filed in the U.S. House of Representatives that aims to lower the cost of homeowners’ insurance by 25%.     

The proposal Mucarsel-Powell is referring to, which is sponsored by South Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, would cover a range of natural disasters, including fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

The legislation calls for the federal government to issue post-event bonds to insurance companies, so they would not be at risk of ruin. In essence, the federal government would help guarantee part of the insurance cost for homeowners when disaster strikes, which would result in Floridians paying less in insurance rates.