Florida Residents Flee State as Insurance Premiums Skyrocket up to 900%

The skyrocketing cost of insurance premiums in Florida is leading residents to drop their insurance, consider selling their home, and even move out of the state, according to recent reports.

For years now, Florida has been a magnetic destination for many Americans wishing to live in the sunny, vibrant state—a phenomenon which has been driving up demand for housing, especially during the pandemic, as well as home prices.

But while Florida was the number one state in the country that people moved to in 2022, it was also the one with the highest number of residents wanting to relocate, according to a SelfStorage study mentioned by News-Press.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 275,666 people left Florida in 2022—nearly 23,000 people every month. Most, according to the bureau, relocated to places like Georgia (46,884), North Carolina (42,301), Tennessee (36,200), South Carolina (31,456) and Texas (29,975).

There are many reasons why people are leaving the Sunshine State—including the rising cost of living, the skyrocketing home prices, high property taxes, and the exacerbated risk of deadly and devastating extreme weather events like hurricanes.

The country’s insurance premiums, which are the highest in the country according to a recent study by the Insurance Information Institute (Triple I), are also one of the reasons Floridians are considering leaving the state, as many can no longer afford insurance on their homes.

Several homeowners told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the increased cost of premiums has led them to completely or partially drop their insurance—what’s known as going “bare”—and even consider selling their properties.

Insurance premiums have tripled in the state in the past five years, with residents of the Sunshine State currently paying on average more than $4,200 per year for home insurance. The national average is $1,700, according to data from Triple I.

Some insurance premiums have risen by about nine times what they were in 2022, Oscar Seikaly, chief executive of NSI Insurance Group, told the WSJ, with multimillion-dollar homes generating premiums worth as much as $600,000 a year.

This happened in part because construction costs—which are taken into consideration when determining how expensive it would be to rebuild a home once destroyed—have risen by a staggering 40 percent since 2017, and because of the excess litigation going on in Florida.

Analysts have expressed their fears of what could happen should a major natural disaster, like a hurricane, strike the state as many Floridians are uncovered by insurance.

Going bare is “very dangerous, because once the storm or the fire hits, if they don’t have insurance, they’re going to suffer really big losses,” Yanjun (Penny) Liao, an economist at Resources for the Future, previously told Newsweek.

But as insurance premiums are expected to continue surging in the future and state legislators are still considering a solution to the mass exodus of major insurers from the state, more and more Floridians are expected to give up coverage on their homes.

Have you been affected by the rising cost of Florida’s home insurance premiums? Are you considering moving out of the state, or are you dropping your home insurance? Email [email protected]