Florida's property reinsurance market has turned sharply in favour of buyers. Rates fell 15% to 20% across many layers of coverage during the June 2026 renewal cycle, with some layers seeing steeper declines still. Citizens Property Insurance has proposed an average rate decrease of 8.7%, and Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation received 73 private carrier rate decrease filings in late 2025. After two years of sharp increases, the cost of the capital that underpins Florida's small and medium domestic insurers is falling - and for carriers positioned to grow, that shift is material.
Orion180 Insurance is one of them. The Florida-based homeowners’ insurer has secured $1.15 billion in reinsurance capacity for 2026 - a 36% year-over-year increase and a $305 million expansion from its 2025 tower of $845 million, which itself represented 31% growth on the prior year. The 2026 program is backed by a global panel of 41 reinsurers and covers both admitted and surplus lines business. Orion180 also expanded the number of catastrophic events covered, strengthening its claims-paying ability across multiple events within a single season.
The trajectory is striking. Orion180 reported 69% premium growth in 2025 and expects further expansion in 2026, with demand remaining strong for coverage in markets where other carriers have reduced appetite. Reinsurance has historically accounted for as much as 40% of the cost of a homeowners insurance policy in Florida - a figure that illustrates both the sector's dependence on reinsurance capacity and the direct benefit of falling reinsurance costs to carriers seeking to compete on price in hard-to-reach markets.
Ken Gregg, founder and CEO of Orion180, said the program reflects the company's positioning in underserved markets. "We value the continued confidence and commitment of our reinsurance partners, which enable us to provide innovative insurance solutions for homeowners and landlords, including those in underserved and catastrophe-exposed markets where coverage options continue to be challenging," he said.
The broader Florida property market context gives the Orion180 numbers their significance. Florida's market is largely composed of small and medium domestic insurers that rely heavily on reinsurance to manage catastrophe exposure. When reinsurance costs rise, those insurers face pressure on margins, policyholder pricing and appetite - the dynamic that drove multiple insolvencies and withdrawals in 2022 and 2023. When costs fall, the reverse applies: capacity becomes available to grow, price competitively and extend coverage into segments the market had retreated from.
NOAA's forecast of a below-normal 2026 Atlantic hurricane season - 8 to 14 named storms, 3 to 6 hurricanes, 1 to 3 major hurricanes, with a 55% probability assigned to the below-normal outcome - has contributed to the benign reinsurance pricing environment. The early formation of Tropical Storm Arthur near the Texas coast is a reminder that seasonal forecasts describe probability distributions rather than outcomes. As Chris Jones, chief executive of the International Underwriting Association, has noted, what matters is where storms make landfall, their severity and the level of exposure in their path - and rising concentrations of people and insured assets in Florida's coastal areas mean that exposure continues to grow regardless of headline storm counts.
