Written by Raymond Johnson
It’s hard to believe, but I recently had the opportunity to read some reports showing that auto and home insurance rates in Florida are starting to go down. This has taken a long time, but as we turn the page on this year and get ready to head into the new year, it’s great to see conservative leadership really starting to pay off.
Population growth continues to accelerate the housing affordability crisis, with working households feeling the pinch of rising property taxes, real estate insurance premiums, and health care costs.
In 2023, our leaders had to make an important decision. Florida was on the nation’s list of judicial hells. Because state law requires insurance companies to pay the legal costs of people who bring suit, it was all too easy for lawyers to file frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies and secure large payouts. The millions of dollars in payments to lawyers were actually being paid by all of us ratepayers who were insurance customers, so we had to deal with all of that.
Their first reform was to adjust the system to account for self-caused accidents. In other words, if the plaintiff himself is more than 50% at fault for his own accident, he has no basis to sue others. This doctrine prevented enterprising lawyers from negotiating large sums of money in settlements from anyone who might be even remotely responsible for the problem.
Another key part of the reform proposal is extending the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits from four years to two years. This definitely makes sense and has helped small businesses reduce litigation costs and litigation funding for many years after the incident occurred. The logic is that if someone has an accident, they should decide whether to sue within two years and not hold small businesses hostage for too long.
Now, Florida has been removed from the nation’s judicial hell list and insurance premiums have been lowered, absolutely the right direction for working families struggling to cope with Florida’s price crisis.
The lawyer lobby is pressuring Congress to reverse these reforms. That’s a really bad idea, and I’m confident that if they stay this course, costs will be reduced even more completely and Florida will continue to lead the nation on yet another important policy issue.
raymond johnson
Jacksonville, Florida
