If You Own in Florida, Shop Your Renewal. If You Own in California, Brace.

If you own a home in Florida, your premium is finally breaking the wrong way for your insurance company. If you own in California, the bill is going the other way, and not by a little.

For three years Florida homeowners ate double-digit premium hikes while carriers either fled the state or threatened to. Then Florida’s 2022 legislature killed the lawsuit gravy train: one-way attorney fee awards and assignment-of-benefit agreements that had let plaintiffs’ lawyers turn small claims into oversized payouts. The market followed.

For 2026, state-run Citizens Property Insurance filed for an average 2.6% statewide decrease on personal lines, with roughly 60% of policyholders seeing an average 11.5% cut, about $359 a year (Insurance Journal). State Farm Florida filed a 10% statewide reduction. Patriot Select cut 11.3%. Heritage Property & Casualty got an approved decrease. Citizens will end 2025 with its lowest policy count ever, about 385,000, as more than 15 new private insurers entered Florida with over $850 million in fresh capital.

Now look west. California’s State Farm settlement, filed with an administrative law judge on March 6, 2026, locked in a 17% emergency interim rate increase on homeowners (California Department of Insurance). State Farm originally wanted 30%. Rental dwelling went up 32.8%. Renters policies rose about 15.65%. The state’s last-resort carrier, the California FAIR Plan, just got an average 29.1% statewide rate increase approved, effective October 15, 2026 (KRCR News). The LA Eaton and Palisades fires alone drove an estimated $4 billion in FAIR Plan losses. Active FAIR Plan policies grew 44% between fall 2024 and the end of 2025, to more than 668,600.

That is the same kind of policy in two states going opposite directions. The lesson is not “Florida won.” The lesson is the same one either way. Your home insurance bill is no longer a passive line item that quietly rides in your escrow. It moves now, and it does not move on its own.

If you bought a Florida home in the 2023 or 2024 chaos, your renewal might be quietly walking down. Carriers do not write to tell you that. Citizens does not send a refund. You have to call.

If you bought a California home in a wildfire-risk ZIP, the math is harder. The FAIR Plan’s October increase hits hardest on the policies most exposed to fire, and many FAIR Plan customers cannot get a private quote at any price.

Do this now.

If you are in Florida, pull three new quotes before your renewal. Use your existing declarations page so the coverage matches apples to apples. If your current carrier is one of the ones filing a cut, ask them in writing what your renewal will be. If it is not the cut you expected, switch. The market is competing for new business right now.

If you are in California, do two things. First, run our insurance estimator to gut-check the new number against current averages. Second, if you are on the FAIR Plan, get on the waiting lists of every admitted carrier that writes your ZIP. State Farm, Farmers, and others have been quoting again in some areas as the reform package starts to make the math work for them.

File this away. Florida is what a competitive home insurance market looks like, and it took five years and a fight with the trial bar to get there. California is several years behind. Either way, the carrier will not volunteer the better deal. You have to ask. Worth shopping.

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