DeSantis property insurance overhaul favors insurers over homeowners

During his 2022 reelection campaign, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis attacked Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist over his property insurance plan, saying Crist’s proposals would “chase the private insurers out” of the state.

“His plan would end up capsizing the state of Florida if we had a real storm,” DeSantis said.

Less than a year later, it’s DeSantis’ property insurance plan that threatens to swamp Florida homeowners, leaving them either without coverage or with rates so high they can’t afford to stay in their homes.

In December 2022, DeSantis signed a property insurance overhaul that he said would “create an environment which realigns Florida to best practices across the nation, adding much-needed stability to Florida’s market, promoting competition, and increasing consumer choice.”

The overhaul mainly focused on tamping down lawsuits against insurance companies by banning so-called “one-way attorney’s fees,” legal costs that insurance companies must pay for those who successfully sue them in court. That means policyholders who have to sue insurance companies can no longer have those legal fees reimbursed if they take their insurance companies to court and win.

The law also sought to use unspecified lower-rate offers to incentivize homeowners to sign binding arbitration agreements stipulating that any claims against insurance companies would be handled outside of the legal system. The National Consumer Law Center says forced arbitration agreements are “a one-sided and rigged process engineered by corporations to escape public accountability.”

A little less than a year after DeSantis signed the legislation, Florida still has the highest property insurance rates in the country, with average annual premiums of $6,000, a 42% increase over 2022, USA Today reported.

Meanwhile, private insurers are continuing to leave the state, despite DeSantis’ claim that his insurance overhaul would increase consumer choice.

In July, Farmers Insurance became one of at least 14 insurance companies in the last year to pull their business out of the state, leaving 100,000 homeowners to find a new insurance policy just before hurricane season, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

The crisis hampers one of DeSantis’ selling points for his presidential bid, the claim that he’s run Florida so well that he wants to “make America Florida.”

Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed DeSantis’ gubernatorial bid but is now running against him, needled DeSantis on the property insurance issue at the right-wing Turning Point Action conference held in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 15.

“We want him to get home and take care of insurance because you have the highest insurance in the nation,” Trump said.

Trump brought up the property insurance issue again on July 22.

“The DeSanctimonious super-PAC, Always Back Down, should focus more on Florida property and auto insurance, which has zoomed to highest-in-the-nation status, and highest by far,” Trump said in a post to his social media site Truth Social. “Come home, Ron, where you belong. Get those insurance rates way down, because what’s happening in Florida shouldn’t happen anywhere.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.