Florida car insurance rates have started dropping but don’t celebrate yet | Opinion

It’s expensive to be a South Floridian. We have sky-high property values that place homeownership out of reach for many, wages that don’t keep pace with costs, some of the highest-priced apartment rentals in the country and a home insurance crisis. The cost of gas (as we get stuck in traffic) isn’t helping, either; it’s gone up at least 50 cents a gallon since President Trump’s war on Iran.

There’s a bright spot for consumers, though: auto insurance. Florida’s top five insurers are lowering rates by an average of about 8% for 2026, the state’s insurance commissioner announced earlier this month.

That may not be much, and there are big-picture problems with Florida’s car insurance market that still must be addressed. But in cost-burdened South Florida, we’ll take it.

Consumers need the help. As of 2022, Floridians were paying the highest car insurance rates in the nation, according to a 2025 report by the nonprofit Florida Policy Project.

In Tallahassee, the Legislature may be busy debating whether to cut taxes on homesteaded properties as a way to give residents financial relief, but let’s not overlook car insurance rates. They’ve been a burden for a long time, too.

The companies reducing their average rates by about 8% are Progressive, GEICO, State Farm, Allstate and USAA. Together, those companies cover the majority of the market, almost 80%, Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky said in a news release. There were other decreases by some companies last year, too.

The drop in rates means legislators’ work in the last few years to crack down on “frivolous” litigation is paying off, according to Jeff Brandes, the outspoken former Republican state senator from Pinellas County who founded the Florida Policy Project.

Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has called Florida a “judicial hellhole” due to excessive litigation — signed tort reform legislation in 2022 and 2023. This year, at least one insurance company, Progressive, is issuing refunds to customers, with checks or credits hitting mailboxes in February, the Miami Herald reported.

It’s too soon to tell whether these changes will have long-lasting impact. Progressive, for example, said it has had lower-than-anticipated costs for losses in the state since 2023 for certain types of personal auto claims, a company spokesman told the Herald. He also noted that the absence of Florida hurricanes in 2025 was a contributing factor for the rebates. Will those factors have to continue in order to keep premiums down?

Brandes warns that Florida’s car insurance market still needs to address a root cause of higher prices: uninsured motorists. About 20% of drivers in Florida get behind the wheel without any insurance, The Florida Policy Project report said.

“Lower rates are welcome. Any relief for Florida drivers is good news,” he wrote on X. “But here’s the hard truth: Florida’s auto insurance laws were largely built in 1971. Muscle cars, pay phones, and gas under 40 cents a gallon. The world has changed. The law mostly hasn’t.”

Many drivers carry insufficient insurance or none at all, he said, and when a crash occurs, the costs shift to those who bought sufficient coverage. That drives up premiums for everyone.

What can be done? The Florida Policy Project report cites Oklahoma as one state that seems to have figured out ways to reduce the number of people who drive without insurance, which is one way to attack costs. A key feature: automated license plate readers to identify uninsured vehicles on the road combined with a database of vehicle and insurance policy information. The state also upped the fine for those who were caught driving without insurance.

“Lower rates are good news,” Brandes wrote. “But until Florida fixes uninsured and underinsured driving, responsible drivers will keep subsidizing the rest of the system...”

In a state where residents were already paying some of the highest car insurance rates in the country, an 8% reduction may not feel like it’s much to celebrate. But amid the endless barrage of negative news about South Florida’s cost of living, at least it’s a few bucks — or even a few hundred — back in the pockets of consumers.