Florida's property insurance market just hit a milestone that would have seemed unlikely a few years ago: Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state's insurer of last resort, now holds only about 2% of the market — its smallest share in more than 15 years. Citizens President Tim Cerio delivered the figure at a June board meeting, according to Insurance Journal, capping a multi-year retreat from the depopulation peak.
The scale of that retreat is striking. Citizens' policy count has fallen to 293,772 as of the end of May 2026, down from roughly 1.4 million policies in 2023, per Insurance Journal's reporting on Citizens' own figures. That drop reflects private insurers absorbing policies back out of the state pool as underwriting conditions improved — a direct byproduct of the 2022 legislative overhaul that curbed one-way attorney fee awards and eliminated assignment-of-benefits arrangements that had fueled litigation.
The litigation data backs that up. Citizens saw its litigated-claims share drop to 5% in 2025, the lowest since 2018, with lawsuits against the insurer falling to 4,353 for the year, Insurance Journal reported. Fewer lawsuits and a shrinking policyholder base have given carriers more confidence to write new business and pull existing Citizens policyholders back into the standard market — the intended effect of the 2022 reforms finally showing up at scale.
But personal lines stabilizing doesn't mean the regulatory workload for agencies is easing. On the commercial side, Gov. Ron DeSantis in June signed Senate Bill 1028, establishing a new mandatory clearinghouse for Citizens' commercial policies. Insurance Journal noted that a number of brokers and agents publicly objected to the bill as unnecessary, with some characterizing it as benefiting one large brokerage disproportionately. Whatever the legislative motivation, agencies now have a new commercial workflow to build around.
The commercial book was already thinning before the mandate arrived: Citizens' commercial and commercial-residential policy count dropped from roughly 21,000 in 2023 to under 6,000 by this spring, per Insurance Journal. The clearinghouse adds a procedural layer on top of that shrinking base, and the definitions matter. Citizens issued a bulletin this month specifying that, effective June 26, takeout policies routed through its EXLynx clearinghouse won't count as "comparable coverage" unless they include roof replacement-cost value and at least $10,000 in non-weather water damage coverage — a distinction the Florida Association of Insurance Agents flagged as something agents need to build into client conversations now, as reported by Insurance Journal.
For independent agencies, this is a compliance detail with real client-facing consequences: policies that look similar on price can differ materially on what counts as an adequate replacement under the new rule, and getting that wrong in a client conversation creates E&O exposure.
Zoom out to market structure and the backdrop looks favorable for agencies with capacity to adapt. State licensing and carrier-appointment records show Florida still counts 9,945 independent P&C agencies, with 95.3% of the market independently owned versus 3.9% held by consolidation platforms. Public DFS licensing data also show carrier access is generally healthy — a median of 7 distinct carrier appointments per active General Lines agent statewide, though a quarter of agents hold just 3 or fewer, a sign of dependency risk for smaller shops navigating rule changes like the EXLynx update. New agency formation has held roughly steady, with 2,963 new licenses issued over the trailing year.
The practical takeaway for agency owners: personal lines relief from Citizens' shrinkage is real, but commercial-lines compliance just got more complex, not less. Agencies that update their client materials and takeout comparisons now, rather than waiting for a complaint or an E&O claim, will be better positioned as the clearinghouse rule beds in. For a deeper look at how Florida's agency landscape breaks down by ownership structure, see Pexara's Florida market intelligence.