[seanharper]

The issue in Florida is also idiosyncratic to the state -- in addition to macro factors such as an increase in reinsurance costs (driven by increased cost of capital) and increased weather volatility (driven at least in part by global warming), Florida has had an issue with insurance fraud. They had a set of laws and court cases, unlike any other state in the country, that created a financial incentive for contractors to inflate (or make unnecessary) insurance claims. They would work in concert with litigation mills to further inflate the size of those claims. The way the laws were setup it often allowed the attorneys to get a 3x multiplier on their fees (which they would inflate to begin with).

So you would have a situation where a roof needed to be replaced, should cost $30k. A roofer comes up with an estimate for $60k (and maybe pays the homeowner back a $10k kicker), gets the homeowner to sign over the insurance policy to him. Then he hires a lawyer who spends $50k of his time litigating the case. Let's say the court sides in favor of the insurer and awards $30k, the lawyer still gets $150k (3x multiplier on the $50k of fees).

As a result you had Florida accounting for 8% of the homeowners insurance claims nationally and 75% of the lawsuits nationally. There are billboards for insurance attorneys EVERYWHERE in florida.

The phenomenon impacted big national companies like State Farm that have similar claims handling procedures across their book. So State Farm would handle claims exactly the same in Florida as in Illinois and get sued 10x more often in Florida because of the financial incentive to sue. It also impacts Florida's state-owned insurer, which does compete very vigorously in the market and is the largest insurer in the state.

David Altmaier, the former Commissioner of Insurance in Florida, wrote a good piece on that situation - https://floir.com/siteDocuments/ChairIngoglia04022021.pdf

Fortunately Florida took a really good stab at fixing the problem with some legislation passed last December. It will take a while to see if the legislation worked, however. Meanwhile we still have the macro factors (climate change, reinsurance costs) to contend with. https://bestsreview.ambest.com/edition/2023/february/Florida...