Lawsuit Reforms Are Working to Bring Insurance Rates Down

Editorial

Lawsuit Reforms Are Working to Bring Insurance Rates Down

Published on

December 31, 2025

By The Space Coast Rocket

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Editorial By Sam Elliott, Floridians for Government Accountability – Good news is in the air as recent reports indicate Florida’s automobile insurance and home insurance rates are getting set for a deep drop in rates. On top of that, Governor DeSantis recently announced $1 Billion in automobile insurance rebates. This has been a long time coming, and as we get ready to turn the page and move into the new year, it is wonderful to smart policies work for consumers and those concerned with getting the most out of our government leadership.

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Prior to 2023, Florida was on a national Judicial Hellhole list. It was easy for an attorney to file a frivolous lawsuit against an insurance company and secure a big payout because of one-way attorney fees. State law required insurers to pay for the legal expenses of those who sued them. Millions upon millions of payments to lawyers were being paid for by all of us rate payers regardless of the legitimacy of the case.

In 2023, they ended one-way attorney fees and made some other adjustments. They made it so that if the plaintiff himself or herself is more than 50% at fault for his own accident, he has no basis to sue. This stopped the settlement shopping and attorneys’ looking for the big payout from anyone who might have even a small percentage of liability for an issue.

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Another thing they did was move the statute of limitation for a lawsuit from 4 years to 2 years. That has helped to reduce the amount of litigation for many years after an incident. It only logically follows that if someone has an accident, they should know within 2 years whether they are going to sue and not keep holding a small business hostage for a significant amount of time.

Now, Florida has been removed from the national judicial hellholes list, and insurance rates are plummeting statewide. Notably, Florida is one of the few state that is actually seeing a reduction in the cost of insurance.

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The attorney lobby is putting pressure on the legislature to reverse these reforms. That would be a really bad idea. If they will stay the course, we will see costs even more fully reduced and Florida continue to lead the nation on yet another important policy issue.

Rates will keep falling to record low levels, and Florida’s affordability crisis will be greatly eased.

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