Florida Homeowners Face Insurance Challenges Amid Climate-Driven Market Shifts

Florida homeowners are increasingly facing escalating insurance premiums and challenges securing coverage, particularly for older homes. Many are turning to state-run insurers like Citizens Property Insurance Group, which often impose costly and sometimes counterproductive requirements such as mandatory roof replacements. These scenarios highlight systemic issues in the insurance market where risk assessment heavily favors newer constructions, disregarding the resilience of older structures. This trend reflects a broader national pattern, with insurers canceling millions of homeowner policies between 2018 and 2023, driven by the impact of climate-related catastrophes. Global reinsurers, which support local insurers, raise rates after significant disaster losses, prompting local carriers to hike premiums or exit high-risk markets like Florida, California, and Louisiana. This cycle results in increased costs for homeowners regardless of individual claims history. The insurance market's current dynamics contribute to environmental and economic concerns. The pressure to replace older homes with new, energy-intensive constructions accelerates carbon emissions and material waste. There is a disconnect between preserving resilient, longstanding homes and the insurance industry's criteria, which prioritize code-compliant new builds. Experts argue that this market distress signals broader vulnerabilities tied to climate change, infrastructure inadequacies, and outdated building codes. There is growing advocacy for integrating resilience and decarbonization into building performance standards, supported by initiatives such as IBHS FORTIFIED, FEMA's Community Rating System, and FM Global's resilience credits. Data indicates that retrofitting existing buildings to improve resilience and energy efficiency can reduce losses and insurance costs. Addressing the crisis requires reframing insurance, policy, and construction codes to emphasize functional recovery, retrofitting over replacement, and proactive community investment. Moreover, insurance access increasingly intersects with climate equity, as rising costs threaten homeownership affordability. The current challenges underscore the need for a coordinated market and policy response to reinforce resilience and sustainability in the housing sector.