Policyholders at Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will receive an average statewide homeowners rate reduction of 8.7%, according to an announcement from Governor Ron DeSantis. Homeowners in South Florida are positioned for even steeper cuts under the new rate structure.
The reduction goes well beyond the 2.6% decrease Citizens filed for in December, which itself marked the first rate cut approved by the insurer’s board since 2015.
Under the revised plan, more than 330,000 policyholders will see lower premiums, and over 150,000 of them will receive reductions of at least 10%.
Multiperil homeowners policies will see an average statewide decrease of 8.7% when they renew this spring. The change marks the largest Citizens rate reduction in years and sharply exceeds the figure the insurer initially put forward.
DeSantis said the earlier filing included only modest relief and left too much on the table. Regulators declined to approve it as submitted and instead modified the proposal to deliver more meaningful savings to policyholders.
The announcement appeared to catch Citizens off guard. Spokesperson Michael Peltier said the company was still waiting for final orders from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and did not yet have county-level breakdowns showing how the revised rates would land.
DeSantis appeared alongside Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, focusing remarks on South Florida, where premiums have long ranked among the highest in the state.
DeSantis said the Citizens cuts follow a broader easing of insurance pricing across the state. He pointed to declining rates in both auto and homeowners coverage and said additional relief remains on the way, describing the Citizens reductions as the most significant in recent memory.
State officials tied the lower rates to tort reform and insurance legislation enacted over the past several years.
Chief financial officer Blaise Ingoglia said the changes reflect a deliberate effort to stabilise a market that stood close to failure only a few years ago.
Ingoglia said reforms aimed at reducing litigation, fraud, and abuse have reshaped the insurance environment and are now translating into tangible savings for homeowners. According to the governor’s office, admitted home and auto insurers in the private market are also filing for lower rates.
The numbers suggest a growing share of risk is moving back into the voluntary market rather than defaulting to the state-backed insurer.
The reductions cited for South Florida largely mirrored figures Citizens released in December, with cuts ranging from roughly 11% to 14% from the Florida Keys through West Palm Beach.
Some counties previously flagged for slight increases under the original proposal, including parts of Central and Panhandle Florida, remain an open question until regulators issue final details.
South Florida stands out in the data.
- In Broward County, average rates will fall by 14.1% for roughly 27,000 homeowners.
- Miami-Dade County will see a 14% reduction affecting about 42,000 policyholders.
- In Palm Beach County, 26,000 homeowners receive an average cut of 11.9%, while more than 1,000 policyholders in Monroe County will see rates decline by 11.3%.
- Over 8,000 wind-only policies in Monroe County will either drop in price or hold flat.
The rate announcement follows a sharp contraction in Citizens’ policy count.
Over the past year, enrollment fell by about 50%, leaving the insurer with 395,144 policies in force, its lowest level in 14 years, according to the governor’s office.
That decline extends a longer slide. Citizens carried more than 1.4 mn policies as recently as September 2023, before falling to 427,097 by November 2025, according to Kyle Ulrich, president and CEO of the Florida Association of Insurance Agents.
Ulrich said the pace of the drop stands out given continued growth in Florida’s population and housing stock.
Peltier said market conditions continued to improve even after Citizens’ board met in December. At that meeting, President and CEO Tim Cerio suggested rate relief might deepen as conditions evolved, telling board members the picture for policyholders could look better within weeks.
DeSantis argued Florida’s insurance costs now compare more favourably with other states, noting average premiums elsewhere have climbed past those in the Sunshine State.
Even so, Florida homeowners still face some of the highest property insurance costs nationally. Online aggregators show Florida ranking third, behind Nebraska and Louisiana.
The current shift follows a period of severe stress. In 2021 and 2022, average premiums jumped by as much as a third annually, insurers pulled back from the state, and financial ratings pressure mounted.
In response, the Republican-led legislature passed sweeping tort reforms in 2022 and 2023 that narrowed policyholders’ ability to sue insurers over claim disputes and eliminated the recovery of attorney fees in many cases.
Those changes sharply reduced litigation. Combined with a quiet 2025 hurricane season, they altered the economics for insurers operating in Florida.
