Fla. Reforms Cut Property Premiums but Data Show Multifamily Liability Rates Up

October 26, 2026 by William Rabb

In the warming Florida market, post-legislative reforms, much of the focus has been on homeowners’ property insurance rates. But one segment has been overlooked to a degree: multifamily dwellings, a category that includes everything from duplexes and fourplexes to big apartment complexes with hundreds of residents.

Statewide, Florida has an estimated 1.7 million multifamily units, with more being built by the week. The segment of the market is facing new pressures as rents have dropped in some areas amid an oversupply of units, a University of Florida report and other research indicate.

Data from Advocate Technologies, a data analytics firm that tracks commercial and commercial residential rates around the country for the insurance industry, show that property insurance premiums for multifamily dwellings in Florida, like those for most other properties, have indeed fallen sharply in the last two years.

But liability coverage prices have climbed, partly due to the impact of litigation and large lawsuit awards. In other words, it seems that Florida’s historic 2022 and 2023 legislative reforms have had a significant impact on property insurance by disincentivizing excessive claims litigation, but liability claims and lawsuits continue to cost insurers and insureds, at least in the multifamily segment, the Advocate data and reports suggest.

“Property softening is cyclical and can reverse on one bad catastrophe season,” the insurtech firm noted in a recent report. “Casualty hardening from social inflation and larger jury verdicts is considered structural. Until that changes, liability’s share of the book should keep growing even without new business.”

Advocate’s nationwide data, gleaned from more than 100,000 policies and 7,000 carriers and updated regularly, is available on a subscription basis. But the firm allowed Insurance Journal a trial membership.

First, a look at property insurance rates. The data for more than 1,000 Florida properties show that for Florida multifamily property insurance for all categories of structures and coverage, except condominiums, with primary and excess coverage included, the median premium per door has dropped from an early 2025 number of $797—almost double the rate in other Southeastern states—to $472 in April of this year.

The Advocate data also show the lowest-priced carriers for Florida’s multifamily market: Steadfast Insurance, Axis Specialty Europe SE, Mt. Hawley Insurance, XL Insurance America, and Old Republic Union Insurance all offered median rates well below the state average.

Other Southeastern states have seen multifamily property rates drop in the last two years, if not as sharply. Georgia’s median rate has fallen from $430 18 months ago to $303 in July of this year, the data show. Texas’ median for property rates this summer was $472—down slightly from 2025.

South Carolina appears to be an outlier on property premiums. The median price rose from $544 18 months ago to $606 in July, the Advocate database shows.

Liability insurance rates for multifamily have followed a different script altogether in the last few years. Even as Florida and Georgia lawmakers adopted tort reform measures designed to tamp down litigation costs and large verdicts in recent years, liability premiums for multifamily units have fluctuated, the numbers indicated.

In Florida, the median liability premium per door rose from $167 18 months ago—the highest in the Southeast—to $229 this summer. Georgia saw its median move from $147 per door to $225 before dropping in recent weeks. Other Southeast states saw slight increases. North Carolina has produced some of the lowest liability rates in the last two years.

Despite a number of well-publicized shootings at apartment complexes and businesses in some high-crime neighborhoods, and plaintiffs’ firms emphasis on crime statistics in some cases, liability rates do not seem to track with crime rates.

“Crime doesn’t move the price,” the Advocate report said.

Liability rates in Georgia neighborhoods, for example, have more than doubled in low-crime areas but have climbed less sharply in high-crime neighborhoods from 2025 to 2026, the data indicate.

“Liability pricing is tracking lawsuits, not crime, across the industry right now,” the Advocate report noted. “That’s a structural driver, not a seasonal one, so crime measures aren’t likely to start correlating with price any time soon.”

Georgia and Florida have both seen their share of large jury verdicts resulting from negligence lawsuits brought after bystanders were injured in shootings in crime-heavy neighborhoods. The Advocate report did not explain why Florida’s liability rates seem to be accelerating faster than Georgia’s.

One Florida commercial insurance agent, Karen Roeling, pointed out that liability premiums can be affected by many factors besides crime. Other premises liability suits have brought significant jury awards due to mold in apartments, fires, and lack of maintenance, news reports indicate.

Others have said rising liability rates may not be as much of a concern to producers or insureds in a rejuvenated Florida market. Property rates in Florida have dropped so much for homes, including multifamily properties, in the last three years that decrease has more than offset the increased liability costs, said Phil Masi, agency president for Gallagher in Florida.

Advocate Technologies, based in New York, was founded in 2020. Ashwin Agarwal is CEO and co-founder.

Top photo: A Naples, Florida, apartment complex under construction in September. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press)

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