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'Cautiously Optimistic' on Florida: Defense Costs Down, but Reinsurance Still a Drag
Analysts with the AM Best financial rating firm and other stakeholders are cautiously optimistic about the resurrection of the Florida property insurance market, 18 months after state lawmakers approved monumental litigation reforms.
That was the sentiment gleaned from a Thursday webinar hosted by the rating company and from an AM Best report on the Florida market, released the same day.
“It’s still a little too early to declare a win in the marketplace, but signals do look promising,” AM Best analyst Josie Novak said.
Notably, since the legislation was enacted in late 2022, direct defense and cost containment expense – considered a key measure of the claims litigation burden on carriers – has dropped sharply. In 2022, Florida carriers reported the highest DCC-to-direct-premiums-earned-ratio of all U.S. states, at 8.4%, for homeowners, allied and fire lines. The next-closest state was Louisiana, at 3.6%, AM Best reported.
By the end of 2023, that measure had been cut in half, falling to about $307 million for the 47 insurers that write most of the Florida market, including the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp., but excluding some major national carriers.
“While still early, a downward trend has been observed, indicating the reform has positively impacted results,” the report noted.
While 2023 was a year that saw only one relatively minor hurricane hit Florida, claims and defense costs would have been two to three times higher under under Florida’s pre-reform statutory regime, which had allowed assignments of benefits and one-way attorney fees, said Randy Fuller, the Florida leader for Guy Carpenter, the global reinsurance firm.
Another sign of health in the patient: The combined ratio for Florida-focused carriers, excluding Citizens, dropped to the break-even mark in 2023, outpacing AM Best’s national property insurance composite measure. Citizens’ combined ratio fell to less than 81%.
“These are results that have not been seen since the earlier part of the latest decade,” the report noted.
The expense ratio for the Florida specialists fell to about 26%, down from a high of 35% in 2019. Loss-reserve development for Florida insurance carriers also is showing promise, with favorable numbers for the first time in years, AM Best said.
Florida carriers also added significantly to policyholder surplus last year – without major cash infusions. From 2019 to 2023, the Florida-focused insurers, including those that became insolvent, received $2.6 billion in capital contributions, but surplus grew by just $239 million, the analysis showed.
But in 2023, surplus had jumped by $532 million and that was was not dependent on capital contributions.
The news about the reinsurance market was a little more of a mixed bag. After three years of turmoil, spiking reinsurance rates, limits on coverage and higher retention levels, the 2024 renewals for most Florida carriers seem to be “incredibly stable,” Fuller said.
The legislative changes have created some optimism among most reinsurers, analysts said.
But reinsurance costs are still weighing heavily on insurers, and Florida carriers have a much higher dependency on reinsurance than insurers in other parts of the country – almost 10 times the national average, the AM Best report noted. From 2019 to 2023, unaffiliated ceded premium for the Florida insurers more than doubled, from $3.1 billion to $6.4 billion.
Although many carriers have sharply raised rates for policyholders in recent years, the growth in direct premium written has not kept pace with the growth in ceded premium, the report found.
“The materially higher position indicates greater direct risk borne by Florida specialists, necessitating more effective risk transfer, underwriting, pricing, and risk exposure management,” the report said.
Still, other signs point to improved market conditions, including modest rate decrease requests from several insurers and the approval of eight new carriers for Florida this year. Most of those new companies are reciprocal exchanges, a model that some insurance agents until recently had been unfamiliar with, said Dave Newell, vice president of membership and industry relations for the Florida Association of Insurance Agents.
But once the model was explained to agents, “they have become more comfortable with it,” Newell said in the virtual conference.
The full report can be seen here.
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Florida
Jury selection continues in fatal boat crash trial of South Florida real estate mogul George Pino
MIAMI — A new group of prospective jurors was questioned Tuesday in the trial of South Florida real estate mogul George Pino, who is charged in connection with a 2022 boat crash that killed a teenager in Miami-Dade County.
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During jury selection in a Miami-Dade courtroom, Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez asked potential jurors what they already knew about the case and whether they had recently seen or heard anything about it.
Several prospective jurors said they knew only basic details, including that a fatal boating crash occurred and that a teenage girl died. Others said they recalled media reports that alcohol may have been involved.
As questioning continued, some prospective jurors disclosed connections to schools and communities tied to the case.
Passengers aboard Pino’s boat included his wife, his teenage daughter and 11 of her friends, many of whom attended private schools in Miami-Dade County.
One prospective juror said they graduated from a local private school around the time of the crash and were familiar with some of the students involved.
Another said references to schools and witnesses brought back memories of seeing posts and articles about the incident shared on social media.
A third said their child participates in youth sports with students from schools connected to the case.
Investigators said the boat struck a channel marker while returning from an outing on Biscayne Bay. Seventeen-year-old Lourdes Academy student Lucy Fernandez drowned after the crash.
Tinkler Mendez also addressed concerns that a prospective juror had been viewing a news report about the case on a cellphone while waiting outside the courtroom.
Another prospective juror reported hearing the report but said it was not loud enough for everyone in the area to hear.
Tinkler Mendez reminded prospective jurors to avoid news coverage and social media discussions related to the case as jury selection continues.
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STARKE, Fla. — A Florida man who confessed to killing his girlfriend’s infant daughter and throwing her body in a pond three decades ago is set to be executed Tuesday evening.
Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in 1997 for the death a year earlier of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw.
This would be Florida’s eighth execution so far this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
According to court records, Lukehart was watching his girlfriend’s baby in February 1996 while his girlfriend was caring for her older daughter, who had been ill. At some point, the girlfriend said Lukehart drove away from their Jacksonville home, and she couldn’t find baby Gabrielle. Lukehart called his girlfriend about 30 minutes later and told her to call police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper.
Later that evening, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after driving his car off the road. During questioning the next day, Lukehart told investigators that Gabrielle died after he dropped the baby on her head and then shook her. He told police that he panicked and threw the baby in a pond. Law enforcement officers searched the pond and found the child’s body.
The Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s appeals last week. His attorneys had claimed that medication he was taking for kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also argued that having only a month between the signing of Lukehart’s death warrant and the execution deprived him of his due process.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal on Monday.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.
Another execution is planned in Florida later this month. Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
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