Legal reforms, improved building resilience, and disciplined underwriting have combined to restore confidence in the Florida re/insurance market – leading to increased capacity as well as improved terms and pricing during the June reinsurance renewals, according to Guy Carpenter.
Since landmark tort reforms were enacted in December 2022, Florida’s property insurance market has strengthened with domestic underwriters posting a 76.8% combined ratio in 2025, said Carpenter in its report titled “June 2026 Florida Reinsurance Renewals – A Thriving Market Restoring Capital to Healthy Levels.”
“Policyholders’ surplus surged by 45%, as carriers continued to rebuild from the eroded capital levels that resulted from the prior legal environment,” Guy Carpenter said, explaining that the strong surplus levels enabled many insurers to retain more risk and negotiate improved reinsurance terms as they headed into the 2026 renewals.
“We also continue to observe declining litigation, which has decreased roughly 66% since the peak of litigation activity. On the back of profitable results and the proven success of legal reform, policyholders are now beginning to see much-anticipated rate relief,” the report continued.
The legal reforms of 2022 were designed to resolve excessive litigation that had been hitting homeowners with high insurance costs. A recent report calculated that property/casualty insurance costs in Florida are now about 14.5% lower than what they would have been if the reforms had not been enacted.
Strong underwriting performance was also bolstered by a benign hurricane season – the first in a decade without a landfalling tropical storm, the report noted.
The depopulation of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has provided a significant source of new business for many insurers over the past three years – helping to launch 14 new companies, said Carpenter, adding that more than 1.4 million policies have exited Citizens since 2022. “As of the beginning of 2026, the era of Citizens depopulation has now largely run its course, and going forward, companies will rely on more conventional market competition to drive growth.”
Property Catastrophe Demand
During the June renewals the demand for property-catastrophe capacity continued to grow – driven by depopulation of Citizens, population growth, and a rise in average insured values, the report said, pointing to the fact that property-cat demand increased by 12%, which was readily met by expanded reinsurer appetite.
“Reinsurers’ desire to grow with Florida clients was demonstrated by a broad increase in risk appetite across attachment points and a willingness to consider expanded coverage,” the report added. “There was abundant capacity for products such as lower-attaching catastrophe layers and reinstatement premium protection, which were previously areas of constrained capacity in recent years.”
While reinsurers sought to expand relationships with their existing trading partners by offering capacity across a broader spectrum of their programs, securing additional shares was often difficult given the strong appetite from incumbent reinsurers at all attachment points, Carpenter said.
“Additionally, there was greater interest in providing subsequent event cover. Collateralized reinsurers more frequently offered combined packages solving for multiple risk transfer needs, such as top and drop and top and aggregate covers.”
Competitive Pricing
Guy Carpenter said that property-catastrophe prices continued to soften with risk-adjusted decreases typically seen in the -15% to -20% range, while some individual layers seeing deeper risk-adjusted decreases, especially at remote attachment points.
“Additionally, loads on reinstatement premium protection began to ease from the extremely elevated levels seen in recent years,” the report continued.
Quota Share Demand Drops
As Florida insurers’ balance sheets have strengthened, there has been less demand for quota share capacity, but reinsurers’ appetite for Florida quota share business continues to rise because of the strong outlook for insurers in the state.
“Quota share terms improved meaningfully for Florida carriers with the ability to obtain additional catastrophe occurrence limit, additional catastrophe aggregate limit, and additional ceding commission.”
Topics
Florida
Reinsurance
Interested in Reinsurance?
Get automatic alerts for this topic.
