Ahead of the 2026 legislative session, Gov. Ron DeSantis trumpeted Florida’s property and automobile insurance laws and warned members of the House of Representatives against trying to change them when the Legislature convenes in regular session in January.
During a news conference in Sarasota Wednesday, DeSantis said auto insurance premiums have decreased this year, on average, by 6.5%.
“We are seeing rates go down in the auto space at a pace we have not seen in decades, and that is directly attributable to the litigation reforms,” Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky said.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. announced in its Third Quarter SEC filing that in early 2026 it will return $950 million in excess profits to its estimated 2.7 million policyholders in Florida, citing statutory profit limits on auto insurers.
Lobbyists and onlookers have speculated that there will be another attempt to eliminate the state’s personal injury protection requirements (PIP) while Miami Republican Rep. Daniel Perez, an attorney, remains speaker of the House.
The Legislature in 2021 voted to repeal the state’s PIP requirements and return to a fault-based system, instead. DeSantis vetoed that bill (SB 54), acknowledging that although the “PIP system has flaws,” repeal could bring unintended consequences for the market and the consumer.
According to a USA Facts analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, auto insurance in the U.S. as of 2024 had risen by 53.7% since 2020.
“Florida has had kind of a difficult history of this over the years,” DeSantis said. “Part of it’s demographics, part of it’s driving ability and problems on the roads, but part of it was the legal environment, where Florida was considered a litigation hellhole by a lot of folks, and that contributed to consumers having to bear more cost with respect to auto insurance.”
The coming session, based on DeSantis’ warnings to the House, could prove as bumpy or bumpier than last session, when lawmakers extended the proceedings after disagreeing on major policy issues.
Not mentioning members of the House of Representatives, Yaworsky called Senate President Ben Albritton, former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, and incoming Senate President Jim Boyd “steadfast defenders of the reforms that now Floridians are seeing the benefit of.”
“I’m hopeful that we can move the ball forward on things that will meaningfully add value to the consumers in the state and move past this trial bar issue that exists among bad-acting attorneys in this space,” Yaworsky said. “That billion dollars, much of it that is now going into the pockets of consumers, would have been going to those attorneys’ wallets, and that is the bottom line.”
It wasn’t only the automobile insurance market that DeSantis touted, with the governor pointing out that Florida Peninsula Insurance requested an 8.4% reduction in rates for homeowners premiums.
DeSantis derided the House’s attempt earlier this year to reverse sweeping insurance changes made in 2022 and 2023. The Senate, however, had no interest in revisiting the changes that DeSantis said were being pushed on behalf of the state’s trial attorneys. DeSantis called the 2025 House legislation “very misguided.”
“I understand there’s lawyers who want that, I get that, but you didn’t get elected to represent lawyers, you got elected to represent your constituents,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis derided the House further Wednesday, invoking the special session on immigration in which the House and Senate bucked the governor’s special session.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
