Florida State Senator Smith And Experts Discussed How Insurance Companies Are Exploiting Florida Homeowners Amid Affordability Crisis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2025
Contact: contact@insurancefairnessproject.com
Florida State Senator Smith And Experts Discussed How Insurance Companies Are Exploiting Florida Homeowners Amid Affordability Crisis
Speakers Demand Home Insurers Are Held Accountable for Bad Faith Practices Amid Record Profits While Homeowners Lose Coverage
To watch a recording of the panel, click here.
Earlier today, the Insurance Fairness Project and Unlocking America’s Future hosted a joint press call featuring Florida State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, Dr. Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings, and Anders Croy, Communications Director of Florida Watch to discuss the escalating crisis and the urgent need for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and state insurance regulators to hold the insurance companies accountable.
“Floridians pay the highest property insurance premiums in the nation while insurers quietly funnel billions to their own affiliates. Our constituents are footing the bill for corporate shell games, and that must end,” said Florida State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith. “SB 230 and SB 234 shine a light on hidden profits, cap excessive fees, and strengthen oversight from the Office of Insurance Regulation so families finally get the transparency, accountability, and relief they deserve.”
“While legislative leadership and Governor DeSantis have done the bidding of their donors in the insurance industry by making it almost impossible to sue these same corporations when they refuse to pay legitimate claims, they’ve done nothing for the policyholders struggling to get what they are owed or to stop the skyrocketing rates driving people out of their homes,” said Anders Croy, Communications Director of Florida Watch.
Speakers discussed how insurance companies are systematically denying legitimate claims, abandoning customers when they need coverage most, and exploiting disasters to justify massive rate increases while executives pocket record profits. The pattern is clear with companies like Slide Insurance, which has faced wrongdoing allegations with their executives taking home tens of millions. Floridians in disaster-prone areas are now paying more for coverage and facing far higher rates of policy cancellations, all while statewide premiums have reached the highest in the nation.
“Property insurance companies in Florida are doing a lot more harm by closing record percentages of homeowner claims without paying a penny. They’re also delaying payments and dropping policyholders at an unusually high rate,” said Dr. Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings. “Today, despite tort reform, and actually because of tort reform, our data shows Florida’s insurance crisis is worse off. This leaves Florida, and states across the country, with two choices. They can let market forces play themselves out by driving the market into chaos and then try to rebuild it from the bottom, or they can urgently implement preventative medicine to help avoid that outcome.”
The call previewed two newly released reports. First, a new report by the Insurance Fairness Project that exposed the instability of the Florida insurance market — a revolving door of executives and investors resurrecting failed firms under new names, aided by inflated ratings and weak oversight. Then, a new report from Unlocking America’s Future found that following back-to-back major hurricanes, insurance companies have used disaster as an excuse to abandon Florida homeowners while extracting record profits.
“Florida leaders have insisted that reforms have worked to make the state’s insurance system healthier, but our analysis of the new market entrants shows that Florida’s insurance market remains fragile and undercapitalized,” said Lizzy Price, a spokesperson for the Insurance Fairness Project. “When disaster strikes, many of these companies won’t have the reserves to pay claims.”
“Florida’s insurance crisis isn’t an isolated problem – it’s part of a growing national emergency. And when disaster strikes, it’s ordinary people left to shoulder the costs of recovery. Floridians, and families across the country, deserve better,” said Kyle Herrig, spokesperson for Unlocking America’s Future. “As they face the growing affordability crisis, they need their elected officials to show up for them. That means accountability, oversight, and a commitment to building resilient communities that can withstand the climate risks ahead.”
Without reforms, Floridians will continue to shoulder the burden of the state’s fragile insurance system, paying some of the nation’s highest premiums while facing ongoing uncertainty about whether their coverage will hold when disaster strikes.
Read the Insurance Fairness Project’s report and Unlocking America’s Future report.
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The Insurance Fairness Project is an information hub dedicated to offering insights into the home insurance crisis, exploring its drivers and highlighting solutions alongside issue experts and community advocates.
