ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Insurance prices have been high for some time and with the flooding the Tampa Bay area has received recently, more people are having to file claims costing thousands of dollars.

That was a key focus of a roundtable in Shore Acres on Saturday.

What You Need To Know

  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla. 14th District held a roundtable in St. Petersburg to discuss Florida's insurance market

  • Whitehouse and Castor toured areas in Shore Acres that are often affected by flooding

  • One resident said flooding has led to insurance costs in the thousands of dollars for her family and their neighbors

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla. 14th District, said Floridians are paying too much for insurance.

“We are paying more for home insurance here in the state of Florida than any other state,” she said. “Right now, on average, folks are paying over six thousand dollars annually, and it’s practically doubled just in the past few years.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who leads the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, was a part of the roundtable.

That committee oversees insurance-related proposals.

“Climate change in Florida is not about polar bears and it’s not about tomorrow,” he said. “It’s about property insurance and the future of your home right now.”

Whitehouse and Castor toured areas in Shore Acres that are often affected by flooding, including the home of Meghan Martin.

She said flooding has led to insurance costs in the thousands of dollars for her family and their neighbors.

Meghan is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Doctor, and during past floods, she’s done whatever it takes to get to work.

One flood was so bad, she borrowed her neighbor’s paddleboard to get to her car.

“Even when things are happening and life is hard at home, the kids still depend on me to be there to take care of them,” she said.

The Martins are doing what they can to try to limit the flooding to their home and are looking into raising it off the ground.

Still, Meghan said a lot of people don’t understand that the flooding impacts them months after the water has receded.

“The news cycle moves quickly and you hear about the flooding that happens but you don’t see four months down the road when we’re still living in an 800 square foot apartment,” she said.

There have been efforts to improve Florida’s insurance market.

Bills in 2022 improved the state’s ability to hold insurance companies accountable and reduced timelines for insurers to get payments to policyholders.

Then in 2023, Florida saw bills that clarified deductible rules, expanded discount programs, and expanded eligibility for the My Safe Florida Home Program.

Florida lawmakers recently said they are seeing signs that the market is stabilizing.