The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation released a statement by Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky in support of Gov. Ron DeSantis' 2024-2025 Focus on Florida's Future budget. The governor signed the $116.5 billion budget earlier this month.
"Governor DeSantis' budget strengthens the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's (OIR) ability to protect consumers and foster a market where insurance products are reliable, available, and affordable for Floridians," Yaworsky said in the statement.
According to the statement issued by the commissioner, the Focus on Florida's Future budget allocates more than $237 million to support and bolster the state’s residential home mitigation programs. It also will provide $1.1 million to support OIR's capacity to curate data on the state’s property insurance market and $675,000 to help OIR expand its ability to review filings and recommend tools that mitigate hurricane-caused property damage.
The statement further outlines that the Focus on Florida's Future budget allocates $500,000 to study the effects of substantial improvement periods on community rating system discounts and insurance rates, and $475,000 to contract with a reinsurance expert to analyze reinsurance cycles. An additional $200,000 will fund a project to research and identify possible mitigation measures that will lower homeowner insurance premiums.
Yaworsky continued in his statement, "OIR is a national leader in identifying market trends and taking bold action because we collect more data about our insurance market than any other state or regulatory entity. Expanding our research and data collection capabilities will allow us to better understand the factors impacting our market so that we can make data-driven decisions to ensure Floridians benefit from a stable and competitive insurance market."