Florida Homeowners Again Sue Their Insurers at an Increasing Rate Despite Tort Reform

Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., July 22, 2026 — Weiss Ratings, the nation’s only independent rating agency covering insurance companies, today released a new analysis showing that Florida homeowners continue to file lawsuits against their property insurance companies at an increasing rate.

This trend is evident despite sweeping Florida tort reform laws passed in 2023, which made it much harder for homeowners to go to court. Rather than declining, however, the rate of lawsuits filed by homeowners in the state has risen steadily:

In 2025, the second year after passage of Florida’s tort reform laws, for every 1,000 damage claims closed by insurance companies without payment, Florida homeowners filed 143 lawsuits against their insurers.

That was up from 129 in 2024 (the first full year after tort reform) and from 124 in 2022 (the last full year before tort reform).

Weiss Ratings founder Martin D. Weiss commented: “Florida regulators, insurers and their lobbyists would have you believe that tort reform has reduced the unusually high level of homeowner litigation in Florida. But their public case has relied heavily on raw lawsuit counts that are not adjusted for storm activity, claims volume, or unpaid-claim activity.”

Weiss Ratings relies on the ratio provided by the NAIC in its Market Conduct Annual Statement (MCAS), which reduces important distortions. With the exception of 2023, a transition year affected by a widely reported rush to file cases before a series of reform provisions took effect, the MCAS data show a clear upward trend in the rate of consumer lawsuits even after tort reform.

“Based on their false narrative that Florida tort reform was a success,” added Weiss, “insurance lobbyists have sought to persuade other states to also pass tort reform. But outside of Florida, they’re looking to solve a problem that barely exists.” In 2025, homeowners in Florida sued their insurers at a rate that was 10.7 times the average rate across all jurisdictions outside of Florida. In 2024, the Florida lawsuit rate was 11.8 times that average; and in 2022, before tort reform, it was 8.9 times as high. This confirms that, with rare exceptions, the high level of homeowner lawsuits against insurers is almost entirely a Florida problem.

Insurers also argue that Florida tort reform was designed to reduce “frivolous” lawsuits, but they consistently fail to provide data on how many were truly frivolous and how many policyholders prevailed. “Especially after tort reform,” says Weiss, “the burden is on the insurance industry to explain why policyholders would incur substantial costs to go to court unless they had a strong case against their insurer.”

Before purchasing or renewing a policy, Weiss advises consumers to look up the insurance company here to check how often it closes claims without payment. At the same time, Weiss calls on insurers and the NAIC to release their data on how often each company is sued by its customers and how often policyholders obtain additional payment through judgments, settlements, or mediation.

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About Weiss Ratings: Weiss is the only independent research organization in America that has been tracking and releasing data to the public on the worsening trend of homeowner claims denials by insurers. Weiss rates more than 60,000 institutions and investments, including safety ratings on insurers, banks and credit unions, as well as investment ratings on stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and digital assets. Since its founding in 1971, Weiss Ratings has never accepted any form of payment from rated entities for its ratings. All Weiss insurance company ratings are available at https://weissratings.com/en/insurance

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Weiss ratings of U.S. life and health insurers outperformed those of A.M. Best by 3-to-1 in warning of future financial difficulties, while also greatly outperforming those of Moody's and Standard & Poor's. The New York Times reported that Weiss “was the first to warn of the dangers and say so unambiguously.” Barron's called Weiss Ratings “the leader in identifying vulnerable companies.”