Florida Insurance Companies Donated Over $500K to Republicans in Last Year

In the midst of a home insurance crisis that has sent premiums through the roof in Florida, leaving many homeowners struggling to afford coverage, some of the state's biggest insurers have donated nearly half a million dollars to the Florida Republican Party.

A Newsweek analysis of financial documents available on the independent platform OpenSecrets found that four of the 20 biggest private insurers in the Sunshine State made generous donations to the Florida GOP or Republican candidates in the state in the past year. These four insurers are Heritage Insurance, GEICO, American Integrity Insurance, and Slide Insurance.

This year, Heritage Insurance donated $15,000 to the Florida Republican Party and $1,000 to Florida Republican candidate Simon Corey. Last year, the insurer gave the Florida GOP $200,000 and $1,000 to Florida Republican candidate Griff Griffitts.

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Heritage is among the private insurers who have been cutting coverage as the risk of more frequent and more severe extreme weather events increases in vulnerable areas of the state. Over the past year, the company decided not to renew 74,000 home policies in the state, as reported by Insurify, as it tries to reduce its home insurance risk.

In 2023, GEICO donated $7,500 to Florida Republican candidates as part of a total of $21,000 donated to Republican candidates across the country that year. Also in 2023, the private insurer donated $100,000 to the New York Democratic Party and $30,550 to Democratic candidates across the country.

This year, the company donated $4,000 to Florida Republican candidates Wyman Duggan and Tyler Sirois, as well as $2,000 to New York Democratic candidates David Weprin and Pamela Jo Hunter.

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Between February 2023 and now, American Integrity Insurance donated a total of $82,000, giving $60,000 to the Florida Republican Party and $22,000 to Republican candidates. Of that amount, $73,500 was donated last year and $8,500 in 2024.

This year, the private insurer made donations to Republican candidates Brad Yeager ($1,000), Shane Abbott ($1,000), Griff Griffitts ($1,000), Greg Folley ($2,000), Linda Chaney ($1,000), Daniel Danny Alvarez ($1,000), Nick Primrose ($1,000), and Chase Tramont ($500).

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Between March 2023 and now, Slide Insurance donated a total of $236,000 to the Florida Republican Party, giving $115,000 and $110,000 in March 2023 and $10,000 in July 2023. The insurance company donated $1,000 to one Florida Republican candidate, Simon Corey. The payment made to Corey was the only one in 2024, dating back to May.

Newsweek contacted the Republican Party of Florida, Heritage Insurance, GEICO, American Integrity Insurance, and Slide Insurance by phone and email on Wednesday morning.

Florida homeowners have seen premiums skyrocketing in the past few years as private insurers tried to adjust to a higher-risk world and match a market marred by excessive litigation and widespread fraud in the Sunshine State. According to the latest data from the Insurance Information Institute, or Triple I, the average homeowner insurance premium in Florida was $3,340 per year in 2023, much higher than the national annual average of $1,650.

Insurance companies which couldn't increase their rates to the point of ensuring that potential damage claims would not outweigh their profits decided to cut their coverage to vulnerable areas—as Heritage, AAA, and others have done—or pull out of Florida entirely, as in Farmers Insurance' case.

The decision of so many private insurers to scale back their operations forced thousands of homeowners in the state to rely on Florida's insurer of last resort, Citizens, for coverage when no company in the standard market would offer them coverage. Citizens' size has ballooned to over 1.2 million, and the insurer of last resort is now the biggest in the state.

The rise of homeowners insurance premiums and the sudden growth of Citizens have raised concerns among residents, experts, and Florida legislators, while Governor Ron DeSantis blamed the higher rates on the weather and high inflation.

The state's legislature has tried to address the ongoing crisis with policies encouraging the return of private insurers in the state, some of which appeared to have worked.

The state welcomed six new private insurers this year, spelling optimism for the future of Florida's property insurance sector. But while the situation appears to be stabilizing, a devastating hurricane season this year could bring Florida's home insurance sector to its knees, experts have warned.

"The Florida market currently consists of many small and local insurers that are not well capitalized and rely heavily on reinsurance," Penny Liao, an economist and researcher at Resources for the Future, previously told Newsweek. "If insured losses end up being very high, we might see insurer insolvencies and withdrawals, as well as higher premiums in the following years due to the increase in reinsurance costs."

As the situation is unlikely to dramatically improve before November, the ongoing crisis in Florida could prove a liability for Florida Republicans during the 2024 election cycle. Beth Matuga, a consultant for the Florida House Democrats' campaign committee, told NOTUS the property insurance and abortion would be Republicans' "kryptonite" this year.

"We hardly ever get, as Democrats, particularly in Florida, a pocketbook issue and a social issue together at the same time, and those two things together form a kryptonite of sorts for Republicans," she said.

Update, 8/28/24 5:15 a.m. ET: This article was updated with Triple I's latest estimates on 2023 average home insurance premiums in Florida.