The ambitious legal reforms Florida undertook in 2022 and 2023 are generating dividends—literally. At a recent event in Sarasota, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky announced that around 2.7 million Florida policyholders may receive an average rebate of $300 on their insurance premiums, either as a check or as a credit on future bills. The rebate, a total sum of nearly $1 billion from Florida’s largest auto insurance provider, was triggered by a Florida law requiring insurers to return what it defines as excess profits in a three-year period.
Legal reform is a major driver behind the good news. In describing the factors that made the rebate possible, both Gov. DeSantis and Commissioner Yaworsky highlighted a component of the 2022 reforms (see link above) that eliminated the practice of automatically adding attorneys’ expenses to disputed auto insurance claims settled in court. According to USA Today’s reporting on the Governor’s remarks, that change removed an incentive for attorneys to take these cases, and consequently reduced the number of new lawsuit filings dramatically in recent years. “Florida was really … considered a litigation hellhole by a lot of folks and that contributed to consumers having to bear more cost with respect to auto insurance,” Gov. DeSantis said.
“Much of what is going to the pockets of consumers would have been going to attorneys’ wallets [without the enacted legal reforms] and that is the bottom line,” Commissioner Yaworsky noted.
The Governor warned against undoing any of Florida’s legal reforms, which a plaintiffs’ lawyer-aligned coalition unsuccessfully attempted during the 2025 legislative session in the House. He asserted that the House plans were a way to reward trial lawyers, instead of their constituents. “A billion dollars is significant,” Gov. DeSantis stated. “To actually get money back, that’s a really, really good thing.” The Governor also flagged that it was better that money was being returned to customers instead of going to “lawyers.”
The trend of rate decreases has continued in the days since the Governor and the Insurance Commissioner spoke in Sarasota, notably with State Farm announcing a 10% decrease in auto insurance premiums and AAA announcing 15 and 5 percent decreases to auto and homeowners insurance, respectively.
Looking ahead to the 2026 legislative session, consumers should be on alert for any renewed efforts by the trial bar to roll back these reforms. Consumers are realizing the benefits of legal reform and a more robust, competitive insurance market in a very tangible way, and the trial bar should not be allowed to reverse that progress.
