As Florida enters the peak of hurricane season, a new report suggests insurers are denying more homeowners' insurance claims while policyholders are suing at higher rates to challenge those denials.
The report, released by Weiss Ratings, analyzed official data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). It found that, in 2024, insurers operating in Florida denied payment on 46.7% of closed homeowners' claims, compared with 40% in 2022. Over the same period, lawsuits filed by homeowners whose claims were denied rose from 12.4% to 12.9%.
Weiss Ratings founder Martin Weiss described the trend as one of the most concerning he has seen in his five decades of industry analysis. He noted that Florida enacted tort reform laws in 2022, measures promoted by the insurance lobby and widely expected to make lawsuits more difficult to pursue. However, he said that instead of accepting more denied claims, homeowners pursued lawsuits more frequently.
The report concluded that insurers, anticipating that tort reform would reduce litigation, had denied claims more aggressively. This led to a rise rather than a decline in lawsuits. For every 1,000 claims in 2022, homeowners filed 124 lawsuits. In 2024, that number increased to 129.
Outside Florida, policyholders were far less likely to go to court. For every 1,000 claims denied nationally, homeowners filed only 11 lawsuits, making Florida’s litigation rate about 12 times higher than the rest of the country.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR) and industry representatives have continued to promote tort reform as a measure to reduce lawsuits. In August, state officials admitted they were not tracking lawsuit data and had not enforced a reporting rule passed in December 2022.
Weiss said that it is possible insurers believed tort reform would protect them from litigation and pursued a deliberate strategy of denying more claims. According to him, the approach failed and ultimately backfired.
The Weiss Ratings report also noted that insurers outside Florida that approve a higher share of legitimate claims face far fewer lawsuits. Weiss said the experience in Florida should serve as a warning for other states considering similar reforms. He said insurers that deny fewer claims are less likely to face legal challenges, while states that pursue tort reform may inadvertently make conditions worse for both insurers and policyholders.
