Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Florida's insurer of last resort, cut homeowners insurance rates for the first time since 2015, with state regulators approving a statewide average reduction of 8.7 percent that takes effect June 1, 2026. More than 330,000 Citizens policyholders across all 67 counties will see lower premiums at renewal, and South Florida is getting the deepest cuts: Broward County homeowners are seeing an average 14.1 percent reduction, Miami-Dade 14.0 percent, and Palm Beach 11.9 percent.
The reductions follow tort reforms passed in 2022 and 2023 aimed at curbing litigation against insurers, changes state officials credit with drawing 17 new private insurance companies into the Florida market and shrinking Citizens policy count by roughly 76 percent from its 2023 peak. Private carriers are cutting rates too. State Farm filed for a 10.1 percent decrease, Florida Peninsula for 8.2 percent, and Security First for 8 percent, adding up to the broadest rate relief Florida homeowners have seen in over a decade.
The Relief Doesn't Extend to Vacant Property
None of that rate relief applies the same way to a vacant or unoccupied home. Standard homeowners policies typically stop covering a property once it sits empty for 30 to 60 days, and insurers underwrite vacant dwellings as a separate, higher risk category almost entirely apart from the broader market trend. Vacant home coverage in Florida commonly runs 50 to 60 percent above standard rates, reflecting insurer data showing vacant properties are roughly three times more likely to be vandalized and far more likely to sit with undiscovered damage for weeks at a time.
That gap matters more, not less, as the rest of the market improves, because a vacant property owner assuming the good headlines apply to them can end up with a lapsed or excluded policy without realizing it. Standard policies commonly carve out water damage, vandalism and theft once a property crosses the vacancy threshold, and owners frequently discover the exclusion only after filing a claim, not before.
What This Means for REO and Vacant Property Owners
The practical fix is treating vacant property insurance as its own category rather than an afterthought to a standard policy. That means confirming the exact vacancy date that triggers a carrier's coverage change, securing a dedicated vacant or unoccupied dwelling policy before that window closes, and checking whether flood, vandalism and water damage are actually included or need to be added as separate endorsements.
Regular property condition checks support that coverage rather than sit apart from it. Insurers price vacant risk around how quickly damage gets caught, and documented, dated inspection records are often what separates a covered claim from a denied one when something does go wrong.