In 2004, I was a junior in high school when the eye of Hurricane Charley came right over my family's home. We lost part of our roof when a tree fell into my bedroom, and what followed was three long weeks without power, months with a blue tarp, and ultimately a new roof.

Hit with multiple major storms in just two short years, Florida's insurance market was rocked to its core. Insurers collapsed, homeowners were dropped, and in the aftermath, we all paid for it in the form of higher premiums.

Now, we're seeing the same death spiral: skyrocketing rates, dropped coverages, and failing insurers. The only difference now is this time there were no recent hurricanes.

**I'm going to offer a caveat right here, this email is undeniably biased. Remember, this is just part 2 of 5 on my series about the crisis in home affordability as it pertains to homeowner's insurance. Take everything in here with a grain of salt that the rest of the story will be told in the other four parts of the series. It is a complicated issue that requires balance.**

Florida is 8% of homeowner insurance claims nationwide, yet we account for 79% of ALL lawsuits.

Much of this litigation has been driven by third-party contractors utilizing assignment of benefit (AOB) agreements working with *notably few* self-interested lawyers and public adjusters.

We've all had a knock on our door from a local roofer who just happened to notice some damage on your roof while repairing a neighbor's... But as it turns out, there's no such thing as a free roof! 

I understand the appeal, it's undeniable. A professional roofer makes a recommendation, a public adjuster validates it, then an attorney agrees that you have a case, it costs you nothing and you get to save $20k on the price of a replacement roof. Hell, it's hard to understand why MORE people don't take the deal.

Sometimes, the homeowner doesn't even know they are named in a lawsuit, because they signed the rights away to the roofer on an iPad without even knowing it... But the neighbors know. They know because now THEIR premium rates are going up 30, 50, 100, 200% PER YEAR! 

Homeowners insurance is not a roof warranty and your insurer didn't price your policy to replace your roof every 10 years, plus legal fees. Statewide, this has led to over 115,000 lawsuits being filed last year alone, the next highest state in the nation had just over 1,000.

Also, and this is crazy to me, but according to a recent report, only 8% of the $3B in litigation expenses paid by Florida's insurance companies in 2019 went to homeowners. 70% went to their lawyers, and 20% went to the insurance companies' lawyers.

Don't take any of this from me though. I sat down with Kevin Swanson of Great Florida Insurance here in Brandon. He represents a few thousand local customers and he's been tirelessly at me for two years now about this issue, advocating for people who live here who cannot afford the rising prices. We chatted for about 15 minutes and the full interview is posted here:

Last year, I broke with the majority of my party to vote for reforms in Senate Bill 76. I had held my foot down on an issue I felt would disadvantage families who lost roofs in hurricanes–just as mine once did–and could not afford to replace it. Ultimately, I was able to negotiate that protection into the bill and I therefore felt comfortable voting for the final product.

Back then, Kevin put together about a dozen local realtors, local attorneys, and roofers all convened on a Saturday at Beef 'O' Brady's on Bell Shoals. I honestly drove home from Tallahassee just for that one meeting. That's how important the issue was to me then, and how important it remains today.

I was proud to be the first in the House to call for reforms in a Special Session. Governor DeSantis has relented and is accommodating the request, and I'm committed to real reforms that deliver results.

Still, there's also a case to be made here that there are innocent victims, people who have legitimate claims on bad roofs and freak storms, that are getting lost as one small needle in a haystack of fraud. They are some of the innocent victims being drowned out, stuck in the middle of rich lawyers and big insurance companies. We'll hear that cautionary tale tomorrow.

Stay tuned till then!