After Ian, Lee County families still can't afford to stay home. What would David Jolly do?
David Jolly's plan would help Lee County families rebuild and stay after Hurricane Ian by removing hurricane coverage from the collapsed private market through a state catastrophic fund, projected to cut homeowner insurance costs 60 to 70 percent, while stabilizing Citizens and scaling workforce housing so recovery does not price residents out of their own neighborhoods.[1]
The plan for Lee County, at a glance
Take hurricane risk out of the private market
A state catastrophic fund would remove hurricane and wind coverage from private insurers, which Jolly projects would lower homeowner insurance costs by 60 to 70 percent.[1]
Stop the market from pushing families out
Florida led the nation in home insurance non-renewal rates in 2023, with most cancellations initiated by insurers, not homeowners.[2]
Build so people can stay where they work
Jolly's plan scales workforce and affordable housing based on income, trade, and proximity to work, using public-private models already operating in Florida.[3]
What happened in Lee County
Hurricane Ian came ashore in Southwest Florida in 2022. Lee County took the direct hit. Homes gone. Neighborhoods rebuilt one contractor at a time. And then a second storm arrived, quieter than the first. The private homeowners insurance market that families were counting on to make them whole was already collapsing.[4]
This isn't a story about wind and water alone. It's a story about what happened after. Multiple national carriers pulled out of Florida or cut back coverage between 2021 and 2024, and in 2023 Florida led the country in home insurance non-renewals at 2.99 percent of policies, most of them ended by the insurer rather than the customer.[2] For families rebuilding in Lee County, that meant fewer choices, higher premiums, and for many, a slide onto Citizens Property Insurance, the state insurer of last resort.[4]
Why recovery turned into an affordability crisis
Rebuilding costs money. So does insuring the rebuilt home. Florida is consistently ranked the most expensive state in the country for homeowners insurance, with premiums running from roughly $3,800 to well over $15,000 a year depending on coverage and location.[5] Layer that onto a statewide median single-family price that reached $420,000 at the end of 2024, above the national median for the first time, and the families who lived through Ian are being asked to pay more to stay than they paid to build.[6]
The campaign hears this everywhere it goes. As David Jolly puts it, in pure economic terms Florida is now out of reach for too many people, and too many people can't afford to live in the state anymore.[7] In Lee County, that isn't an abstraction. It's a family that paid its bills for years, waited on a payout, and still can't get back into its own home.
What David Jolly would do
The core of the plan is structural, not cosmetic. Jolly has said that on day one as governor he would introduce a package for a state catastrophic fund to fully remove hurricane and wind coverage from the private market, projecting savings of 60 to 70 percent for homeowners.[1] The idea builds on a mechanism Florida already runs. The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, created after Hurricane Andrew, held $7.12 billion as of the end of 2024 and today backstops private insurers.[8] Jolly's plan expands that role so the state, not a shrinking pool of private carriers, carries the hurricane risk that Lee County lives with every season.
He calls a state catastrophic fund the only actuarially sound way to cover the risk of natural disasters and hurricanes in a state like Florida.[1] This isn't a bailout. It's risk pooling, the same principle that lets millions of people share a cost that no single household or single insurer can absorb alone.
Rebuilding is only half the fight. Staying is the other half. Jolly's plan scales workforce and affordable housing so units are available based on income, trade, and proximity to work, using public-private partnership models he says are already working from Miami to Pensacola.[3] And to take pressure off the whole monthly housing bill, he has proposed capping the profit rate for investor-backed utilities at the national average, still close to a 10 percent return, but an end to the outlier markup.[9] Different pressures. Same goal. Keep the people who built these communities in them.
This page covers one Lee County question. To see the full affordability plan across insurance, housing, utilities, and property taxes, visit the campaign's main affordability page.[10]
The choice Tallahassee made
Jolly's frame is not that solutions are impossible. It's that they already exist and aren't being used. He argues these affordability solutions are within reach right now, and that the current governor and legislature are ideologically opposed to them.[3] For Lee County families still waiting to feel like Ian recovery is over, that is the difference. Not a promise about someday. A different set of decisions about a market that is pricing them out today.
Frequently asked questions
Q. Why are so many insurance companies leaving Florida?
Florida led the nation in homeowner-insurance non-renewal rates at 2.99 percent of policies in 2023, with Louisiana second-highest at about 1.8 percent. Most non-renewals are insurer-initiated, not consumer-initiated. National insurers including Farmers, Bankers Insurance, and AAA (in some segments) pulled out of Florida or significantly curtailed coverage between 2021 and 2024, citing hurricane-loss volatility and reinsurance costs. Florida's property insurance market has shrunk substantially over the past decade as carriers withdrew, with Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (the state insurer of last resort) growing dramatically before depopulation programs began moving policies back to private carriers.[2]
Q. Isn't a state catastrophic fund just a taxpayer bailout for risky homes?
It's the opposite of a bailout, it's a risk-pooling mechanism designed to lower costs for everyone. Today, every private Florida insurer prices hurricane risk into every policy, and because each insurer carries thin capital reserves relative to potential hurricane losses, they have to add huge risk margins on top of the actuarial cost. Pooling hurricane risk across all Florida homes spreads the loss exposure efficiently, the same way Medicare or Social Security pool risk across millions of people. The state already operates the FHCF as reinsurance for private insurers; Jolly's plan expands that mechanism. Homeowners would still pay for their state hurricane coverage, just at a lower combined cost than today.[8]
Q. Why is my home insurance so expensive in Florida?
Florida is one of the most expensive states in the country for homeowners insurance, ranking 1st or 2nd on most credible analyses. The drivers are hurricane risk (a structural feature of Florida geography), litigation costs (reformed in 2022 but with lagging effects), reinsurance prices (set globally and reflecting climate-loss frequency), and insurer withdrawals (Florida leads the nation in non-renewal rates).[5]
Q. How much does the FHCF currently hold?
The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund had a $7.12 billion balance as of December 31, 2024. The FHCF is statutorily authorized to cover up to $17 billion in losses, with estimated maximum financing capacity of about $11.2 billion for the 2025-26 contract year through pre-event bonds. The FHCF currently functions as a state-run reinsurance pool, backstopping private insurers rather than replacing them. Jolly's proposal would expand the FHCF's role to absorb hurricane coverage directly out of the private market.[8]
Q. How long until Jolly's housing plan helps me?
Different parts of the plan kick in on different timelines. The utility profit cap could be implemented relatively quickly through Public Service Commission rate-case action, so savings could show on utility bills within the first year or two of a Jolly administration. The state catastrophic fund expansion requires legislative authorization plus operational scaling of FHCF; full premium savings would likely take 2-3 years to flow through to homeowner bills. Affordable housing scale-up is a multi-year build because construction takes time, but expanded state appropriations would show in new units within 2-4 years.[1]
Q. What if I am a renter in Lee County?
Florida is among the states with the most acute rent-affordability crisis per the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Florida rents rose dramatically from 2020 through 2023, and more than half of Florida renters are now cost-burdened, paying over 30% of income on housing. Jolly's plan would scale workforce and affordable housing units (renter-targeted), expand existing SAIL/SHIP/Live Local programs, and target funding at proximity-to-work locations rather than scattered subsidies. He has also proposed the utility profit cap, which would lower the monthly bills renters pay on top of rent. There is no rent control component to his plan.[11]
Q. What if I am a first-time buyer in Florida?
The math is brutal for first-time buyers in Florida right now. Median home price is $420,000 (above the national median), 30-year fixed mortgage rates have hovered in the mid 6 to low 7 percent range, and insurance plus property taxes add hundreds per month on top of mortgage payments. Florida Hometown Heroes is the existing state program providing down-payment and closing-cost assistance, funded at $100 million in FY 2024-25. Jolly's plan would expand state housing-finance programs more broadly. The catastrophic fund and utility cap would each take direct cost off your monthly housing bill.[6]
Q. How does Jolly's plan differ from what DeSantis already tried?
The DeSantis-era insurance reforms focused on litigation: assignment-of-benefits restrictions (2019) and one-way attorney fee elimination (2022). Those reforms reduced one driver of insurance costs (litigation) but did not address the underlying structural problem, hurricane risk in every private policy. Citizens depopulation has shifted policies back to private carriers but often at higher rates. Jolly's plan is structurally different: it separates hurricane coverage entirely from the private market through an expanded state catastrophic fund. It also addresses utility costs with an ROE cap, a pressure the earlier reforms did not target.[12]
Q. Isn't this just price control or socialism?
Jolly's plan uses tools that already exist in Florida and across other states. The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund has existed since 1993, started by Governor Lawton Chiles after Hurricane Andrew. Utility rate regulation by state public service commissions has existed in every state for over a century. State housing finance agencies and the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit have been operating since 1986 across blue and red states alike. Jolly's plan is to scale and update tools that have been part of the American public-private partnership for generations, not to invent new state controls.[8]
Q. Why does Jolly target utilities in his affordability plan?
Because utility bills are part of the housing-affordability stack. Rent or mortgage is the biggest line item, but electricity, water, and gas bills are the next-largest fixed monthly housing cost for most Florida households. Florida Power & Light's authorized 10.95 percent return on equity is among the highest in the country, topping the 10.5 percent authorized for Tampa Electric. Bringing it down to the national average (around 9-10 percent) doesn't crush utility investment, it just stops the outlier markup. Combined with insurance reform, capping utility profit is part of Jolly's affordability stack: rents, insurance, and bills.[13]
Q. Won't capping utility profit hurt investment in Florida's grid?
The cap Jolly proposes would bring Florida's authorized utility ROE in line with the national average, roughly 9-10 percent. Utilities in other states earning 9-10 percent continue to invest in grid modernization, renewable integration, and storm hardening. There is no evidence that capping ROE at the national average suppresses investment; it just stops the outlier markup. Florida's 10.95 percent authorized ROE is among the highest in the country, not because Florida grid investment is uniquely expensive but because the Florida Public Service Commission has approved it. Reducing it to the national norm restores rate fairness without threatening reliability.[13]
Q. How does climate change affect home insurance?
Climate-driven property insurance withdrawals have spread well beyond Florida. California faces wildfire-driven non-renewals; Louisiana faces hurricane-and-flood losses; parts of Texas, Colorado, and the Carolinas are seeing tighter underwriting. State residual-market insurers (Florida's Citizens, California's FAIR Plan, Louisiana's Citizens, Texas TWIA) have grown rapidly to absorb policies private carriers will not write. Reinsurance prices have hardened globally since 2017 due to climate-loss frequency, which flows through to consumer premiums. The Florida insurance crisis is the leading edge of a national trend, not a Florida-only problem.[14]
Sources
- David Jolly, As Governor, Housing affordability, https://davidjolly.com/videos/housing · 2026-05-21
- Central Florida Public Media (citing Insurify + Senate Budget Committee), Florida leads nation in home insurance non-renewal rates, https://www.cfpublic.org/housing-homelessness/2025-07-22/florida-leads-nation-in-home-insurance-non-renewal-rates · 2025-07-22
- David Jolly, As Governor, Housing affordability (video), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZLTCKKZavg · 2026-05-21
- Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Property insurance market, https://floir.com/home/property · 2024-01-01
- Insurance Information Institute, Facts + Statistics: Homeowners insurance, https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-homeowners-and-renters-insurance · 2025-01-01
- Florida Realtors, 2024 Year-End Housing Market Report, https://www.floridarealtors.org/newsroom/flas-2024-housing-market-new-listings-active-inventory-prices-stabilizing · 2025-01-23
- David Jolly, The Free State of Florida remarks (video), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcAeq5jc5a8 · 2026-05-22
- Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, Annual Report, https://fhcf.sbafla.com/media/kfuhfqjv/2024-sba-catf-annual-report-final.pdf · 2024-12-31
- David Jolly, Affordability and insurance platform, https://davidjolly.com/affordability · 2024-01-01
- David Jolly for Florida, Affordability (campaign hub), https://davidjolly.com/affordability · 2024-01-01
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Renter cost burden, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/son-2025-renter-cost-burden-map · 2025-06-01
- Florida Senate, SB 4-D (2022 Special Session), https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022D/4D · 2022-05-26
- Central Florida Public Media, FL Public Service Commission approves FPL rate settlement, https://www.cfpublic.org/politics/2025-11-20/psc-oks-fpl-deal-that-increases-base-rate-in-parts-of-florida · 2025-11-20
- Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), Homeowners insurance trends, https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/triple-i_trends_and_insights_homeowners_insurance_12152025.pdf · 2025-12-15
Lee County rebuilt once. It shouldn't have to leave.
The families who lived through Ian did their part. The plan is about making sure the market lets them stay. Have a question for David? Visit the Town Hall and ask.