South Florida lawmakers push for multistate compact to stabilize home insurance market

Two Democratic lawmakers from Palm Beach County want Florida to team up with other states to tame spiraling home insurance costs and climate-related risks.

West Palm Beach Sen. Mack Bernard and Boca Raton Rep. Kelly Skidmore just filed twin bills (SB 366, HB 319) to create a national risk pool for property insurance against natural disasters.

Under their proposal, Florida would spearhead a framework allowing states to share catastrophe risk, increase bargaining power with global reinsurers and stabilize home insurance markets, effectively building a collective safety net to spread the rising cost of disaster losses.

The legislation would go into effect July 1, with Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) having to develop the compact by Dec. 31, 2027.

“Florida has seen the costs when climate disasters outpace a single state’s insurance market,” Bernard said in a statement.

“By joining together in a multi-state compact, we can create a sustainable, market-driven safety net that protects families, stabilizes the economy, and ensures help reaches communities quickly when they need it most.”

Skidmore said the legislation reflects lessons from recent storms.

“The back-to-back major hurricanes of 2024, from which many communities are still recovering, highlight the urgent need for a national solution,” she said. “Sustaining affordable and reliable homeowners’ insurance is essential to the economic security of Florida families and the stability of our housing market.”

The measures by Bernard and Skidmore, filed Tuesday, come as home insurance policyholders are paying among the highest rates in the nation. The average annual premium in Florida as of March was $3,330, according to OIR data.

For a $300,000 dwelling, the annual rate is $5,761, according to an analysis by Kiplinger. Meanwhile, MoneyGeek quotes $8,770 for a richer coverage package. A press note from Skidmore’s Office said premiums in the state “now hover around $5,400 annually.”

“Over the past five years, home insurance costs have surged by more than 70% in some areas, forcing many homeowners to go uninsured or underinsured,” the press note said. “In 2024, Florida also recorded the nation’s highest rate of policy nonrenewals as insurers withdrew from high-risk regions across the state.”

State lawmakers passed a string of reforms since 2022 aimed at stabilizing its insurance market, including limits on litigation, incentives for reinsurance participation and efforts to depopulate Citizens Property Insurance, Florida’s state-run insurer of last resort.

But those state-level fixes have done little to curb the broader trend: Insurers nationwide are facing mounting catastrophe losses that are driving up costs for everyone.

Across the United States, insured disaster losses now regularly approach $100 billion annually, up from about $4.6 billion in 2000. Hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and floods have increasingly combined to make property insurance both more expensive and less available.

The compact, as Bernard and Skidmore envision it, would function like a national reinsurance pool similar, in spirit, to the National Flood Insurance Program, but governed by instead of Washington.

Ideally, participating states would collectively shoulder catastrophic risks and negotiate reinsurance coverage together, reducing volatility and helping homeowners rebuild more quickly after major disasters.

“By partnering with other states,” Skidmore said, “we’re building a resilient structure that addresses climate-driven risk, insurer retreat, and soaring premiums, leading Florida, and the nation, toward a safer, more affordable future for property owners.”

The proposal faces long odds in Florida’s Republican-led Legislature, where most of the enacted insurance policy legislation in recent years has focused on deregulation and tort reform rather than systemic adjustment.

Florida’s 2026 Legislative Session begins Jan. 13. Preliminary meetings are ongoing.