Florida lawmakers moved again to loosen constraints in the flood insurance market while keeping pricing protections tied to the National Flood Insurance Program.
Reps. Kathy Castor, a Democrat, and Maria Salazar, a Republican, reintroduced legislation aimed at widening access to private flood coverage without punishing policyholders who later return to the federal plan.
The proposal, called the Continuous Coverage for Flood Insurance Act, would let homeowners carry qualifying private flood policies without losing access to NFIP grandfathered rates. The bill tells the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the NFIP, to treat compliant private coverage as satisfying the program’s continuous-coverage rule.
Today, only time spent insured through the NFIP counts. Homeowners who switch to private flood insurance and later come back often face higher premiums, even if they never dropped coverage. According to InsuranceNews US, that rule alone keeps many households locked into the federal program.
Lawmakers backing the bill say the setup discourages switching, even when private policies look cheaper or offer broader terms. It’s a quiet penalty, but one consumers feel fast when rates jump.
The push arrives as Florida’s property insurance market keeps rebalancing. Litigation reforms and regulatory shifts have pushed more risk back toward private carriers.
Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer of last resort, cut its policy count by about one-third year over year to 777,592 by June 2025. At the same time, average risk-adjusted reinsurance pricing renewals fell 10.7%.
Castor said households and small businesses across Florida need clearer choices and more predictable costs when buying flood insurance. Allowing private policies to preserve NFIP pricing status, she argued, gives consumers flexibility without financial punishment, especially in coastal areas like Tampa Bay. More competition, in her view, can widen the insurance pool and ease pressure on rates.
“Families, homeowners and small businesses across Florida – including across the recovering Tampa Bay area – deserve real financial stability, peace of mind and clarity when it comes to flood insurance,” Castor said.
Salazar framed the bill around federal exposure.
She said expanding private participation in flood insurance could reduce long-term taxpayer risk while improving coverage options for homeowners in high-risk zones.
According to her office, letting policyholders move between private insurers and the NFIP without triggering premium shocks makes the system behave more like people expect it to.
Castor added she is working with Salazar “to ease cost burdens on hardworking Floridians and expand consumer choice in continuous flood insurance coverage.”
The sponsors say recognizing private coverage for continuous-coverage purposes would let households move based on price and terms, without a future rate spike if they return to the NFIP.
The legislation builds on earlier reforms. The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 required federally backed lenders to accept certain private flood policies to meet mandatory purchase rules.
Coverage gaps remain wide. Survey data show 32.6% of homeowners say they carry flood insurance, while industry estimates put actual national participation closer to 4%.
In flood-prone states such as Florida, 12.4% of surveyed homeowners reported dropping flood coverage because of cost.
Supporters say NFIP’s handling of continuous coverage nudges households away from private options that could lower premiums. Counting compliant private policies toward grandfathered status, they argue, removes a structural barrier while keeping mandatory purchase rules intact. Maybe that’s enough.
