Two new property and casualty insurance companies plan to do business in Florida, a move that will help keep rates stable for all homeowners in the Sunshine State, regulators say.
Stand Insurance Exchange of Tallahassee, Florida, and Tampa-based Praxis Reciprocal Exchange become the 16th and 17th insurers to enter the Florida market since lawmakers enacted legislative reforms in 2022, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, or FLOIR.
"When new companies enter the insurance market, they create more competition in the marketplace for the business of Florida homeowners and, therefore, help to drive down insurance rates," Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia said in a statement.
A spike in fraudulent claims and deep underwriting losses from a series of hurricanes in recent years hammered the state's insurance market. At one point, nearly every insurer offering residential property coverage in the state raised rates, reduced their footprint or stopped writing new business, according to FLOIR.
State insurance reforms helped remake the market, officials said. The changes included making it illegal for contractors to file insurance claims on behalf of homeowners, also known as "assignment of benefits," and eliminating one-way attorney fees that forced insurance companies to cover the legal costs of the plaintiffs suing them.
The increased competition has led to a series of rate decreases or no increases, according to Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky. Florida Peninsula Insurance Co. recently asked for the largest rate reductions in the company's 20-year history.
Also Thursday, FLOIR said Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-run insurer of last resort, now has fewer than 780,000 policies, well below its 1.41 million peak in fall 2023.
As the number of policies Citizens has falls, so does the risk for Floridians because Citizens has the legal right to levy special assessments against all state homeowners — not just Citizens policyholders — to cover losses from catastrophic claims.
Stand and Praxis each plan to assume 25,000 Citizen policies in December, the state said.