PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Next week, Florida lawmakers will return to Tallahassee for the 2025 legislative session. As part of concerns to ease property insurance rates, lawmakers will once again look to replenish the My Safe Florida Home Program, which quickly ran out of money last year.
ABC Action News anchor Nadeen Yanes has covered the program's challenges and successessince it rolled out. She's now digging into new state data on how many people have actually received the state grant money and, more importantly, actually seen their homeowner's insurance rates drop.
The My Safe Florida Home Program is a home-hardening program that allows Florida homeowners to strengthen their homes with up to $10,000 in state grant funding with the goal of bringing down high insurance rates.
A new state report released in Januaryshows the average cost for home insurance in Florida is now at $3,731 a year.
"We're just stuck in limbo."
Christine and Leonard Miller emailed Nadeen after they signed onto their portal, which showed money had run out for the program and that their grant application was closed.
It came after the couple had to dip into their retirement to put up $15,000 dollars to put in hurricane-impact windows.
"Which is why we put it off for a little bit. We're retired. I'm not ready to go back to work," Christine said.
They moved forward with the program, thinking they'd be approved for the grant, only to see it quickly ran out of money.
"We have a claim in. We have a claim started. We've gone through the steps, but then they've run out of funding," she said. "It's been confusing to say the least. It's just it's not a quick, easy program to work through. We're just stuck in limbo."
Will lawmakers bring the program back?
The Governor has called for state lawmakers to bring back the My Safe Florida Home Program, including $600,000 million dollars in his 2025 budget.
As lawmakers contemplate, the program's director, Steven Fielder, presented new data on the success of the program to the Florida Senate Committee on Banking and Insurance in early February.
"Through December, we had reimbursed $240 million dollars," Fielder told lawmakers.
In his presentation, it showed the state had completed 109,443 initial home inspections, which is the first step of the program to see what improvements need to be made.
Of those, only about a quarter of applicants, 25,530 got the grant money.
And of those, only 12,570 actually saw their insurance rates drop. That's only about 12%.
- Homeowners realizing a premium reduction: 12,570
- Homeowners whose premium remained stable: 7,065
- Homeowners who saw a premium increase: 4,190
- No premium information provided: 1,705
"It does work."
It took Clearwater homeowner Kimberly Johnson about 10 months to complete the entire program, but it worked for her.
Before, her insurance rates had nearly doubled to more than $13,000 dollars when she was told she needed a new roof.
Johnson spent $26,000 dollars to replace her roof and got a $10,000 dollar check from the state after going through the entire program.
"It does work," she said.
When she submitted her new report showing she replaced the roof, and her rates plummeted.
"When I got the check in the mail, it said $10,000 I was extremely happy," Johnson said. "And my insurance dropped. So it went from $13,800 to $7 thousand and some change, which was significant. It takes time and again paperwork, making sure you have all of your ducks in a row."
"We're doing everything we can."
State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis' office oversees the program and acknowledges it can be cumbersome to navigate.
"One of the problems we ran into is because of the just sheer demand," Patronis said. "So we revamped our FAQs. But until the legislature gets more money, we're kind of sitting there waiting, just like our customers are."
When asked about the small percentage of people who actually saw the rates go down, Patronis said the homeowner does need to harden their entire home to get the statutory discount from the insurance. But on average, those who saw their rates drop, saw them drop about $1,000 dollars a year.
"But in order to get the statutory discount, you have to protect the entire bubble. That means your doors, that means your windows, and then we come out and inspect it," he said.
The 2025 Legislative Session begins on March 4th, but even if lawmakers approve it, the funding won't even be available until July 1st.
"We're doing everything we can to help answer those questions, but we can't help anybody financially until the legislature looks at this. Hopefully, we have a partnership with your viewers and make sure the legislature understands the value of this program, they know but they need to hear about it," Patronis said.
Over the last two months, the ABC Action News I-Team has sent the names and information of nearly 300 people who were stuck in an "adjudication hold" to the Florida Department of Commerce. But now, some people have followed up to let the I-Team know after sharing their stories, they are finally getting the relief they desperately need.
