Under $100,000, a Florida Storm Claim Is Mostly on Its Own
Candice Colucci practices in Clearwater and built much of her work around storm claims. She told Bloomberg she doesn’t take claims under $100,000 anymore. They don’t pay for themselves.
Read that as a homeowner instead of as a lawyer. If the damage is $40,000 and the insurer offers $9,000, there’s now no practical way to argue about it. Not because you’d be wrong. Because nobody can afford to be your lawyer over the $31,000 in between.
That’s the part of Florida’s insurance story most people have never been told, and Bloomberg spent Tuesday on it.
What Changed in 2023
Florida used to make the insurer pay the homeowner’s legal fees when the homeowner sued and won. The 2023 laws took that away. Now you pay your own lawyer out of whatever you recover.
Raymond Powers, a Florida trial attorney who represents property owners, told Bloomberg a homeowner can lose up to half a settlement to fees. That’s the math sitting under Colucci’s $100,000 floor. Below it, the fee eats the recovery, so the case doesn’t get taken.
That description of the fee change is Bloomberg’s reporting, published at Claims Journal on July 29. I’m passing it along as theirs, not reading you a statute.
Both Sides Are on the Record
Florida’s insurance commissioner, Michael Yaworsky, told Bloomberg the market was close to collapse at the end of 2022 and the laws fixed it. Robert Gordon of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association said cutting the lawsuits made the whole system work better. Universal, the state’s largest private insurer, said its denial rates have dropped a lot and its rates have been coming down since 2024.
The regulator’s own numbers point the same way. Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation puts the statewide average premium with wind at $3,757, with premiums down in 51 of 67 counties. Citizens was at 293,465 policies in force as of June 5, its lowest in 25 years, and cut 2026 multiperil rates by 8.8% on average.
So here’s the honest version. Both of these can be happening at once. Premiums can be flattening while the money that shows up after a storm gets smaller and harder to argue with. They’re measuring different halves of the same policy. One is what you pay going in. The other is what you get coming out.
Twenty-Two Months Out of the House
Bloomberg’s own example. Jennifer and RJ Garbowicz had to demolish their St. Petersburg house after Helene and Milton hit two weeks apart in 2024. Their policy limit was $713,000. The offer was $2,279.41, per documents Bloomberg reviewed. They’ve been out of the house 22 months and they’re suing.
That file is above the $100,000 line. Which is why it’s still being fought at all.
How a Claim Turns Into a Listing
Here’s the part that reaches this beat, and it’s the part almost nobody connects, because the two events are usually about six months apart.
It runs like this. The claim closes short. The repairs don’t get done, because the money isn’t there. The house can’t be listed at full value with a damaged roof or open drywall, and a lot of the time a financed buyer can’t close on it at all. Meanwhile the payment keeps coming every month.
By the time that file lands in front of somebody like me, the insurance part is finished. Usually past appealing, past suing, past fixing. What’s left is a house worth less than the loan and an owner who didn’t do anything wrong.
Worth saying plainly: falling behind after a claim came up short isn’t a personal failure. That’s the machinery working the way it now works.
If you’re an agent in Jacksonville, or anywhere else in Florida, this is worth asking about early on any listing with storm history. Was there a claim, is it open or closed, and what actually got paid on it. Get that before you set a price, not after. It changes what the house can bring.
What You Can Do With This
I’m not an attorney, and I’m not going to tell anybody how to handle a claim. That conversation belongs with a lawyer who does this work, and the fee math above is exactly why finding one got harder than it was three years ago.
The housing side is mine, so here’s the shape of it. If a claim came up short and the payment is getting away from you, your options are what they’ve always been, and they cost different things. A regular sale, if there’s equity left. A short sale, which needs your lender’s approval, and nobody can promise you that approval. A deed in lieu. Loss mitigation with your servicer. Letting it run to foreclosure. Each one lands differently on your credit, your taxes, and on what you might still owe when it’s over. Florida is a recourse state, so that last piece is real. And the forgiven-debt tax exclusion expired on January 1 of this year, which changed the tax side for a lot of people. Those are legal, tax and credit questions. I’m not your attorney and I’m not your CPA.
The one thing I’d flag is timing, and not because anybody needs to hurry. The number of options is widest early and gets narrower as the arrears grow. Most people find that out afterward.
I’m based in Jacksonville and licensed in Florida. Questions come in from other states, and those go back out through the SFR referral network, because I don’t represent anybody outside Florida.
If you’ve got a question, email JimArmstrong904@gmail.com or call or text (904) 671-4161. No obligation, and no pitch waiting on the other end of it.
Jim Armstrong, REALTOR, Momentum Realty. SFR (Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource) certified. This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
Momentum Realty is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender.
Sources: Bloomberg reporting, read at Claims Journal, July 29, 2026, for the fee-shifting change and the quotes from Raymond Powers, Candice Colucci, Michael Yaworsky and Robert Gordon, and for the Garbowicz policy limit and settlement offer, per documents Bloomberg reviewed. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation property insurance stability report for the statewide average premium and county figures. Citizens Property Insurance for policies in force and the 2026 rate filing.
