WMNF asked Floridians who they think is most responsible for the rising rates of home insurance, auto insurance and housing.
The plurality of voters believe that rising insurance rates and housing costs are due to multiple factors. However, there were differences along party lines when a voter believed that one group was responsible. On the insurance question, more voters said insurance companies were responsible for rising rates. However, for those who chose the government, Republicans were more likely to hold the federal government responsible while Democrats were more likely to hold the state government responsible. Independent voters were also more likely to hold the respective industries responsible, followed by the Florida state government.
Insurance
We asked 1,963 Floridians who say they will vote in November, “When thinking about who is most responsible for the rising cost of car and property insurance in Florida, do you think it is mostly the responsibility of individual owners, the state government, the federal government, insurance companies, or more than one of the above?”
The plurality (43.6%) selected more than one. Among those selecting only one, most blamed insurance companies for the high costs (24.5%), followed by the state government (17.3%), the federal government (9.5%) and the fewest selected individuals (5.1%).
But, there seem to be some slight differences related to political party affiliation. Floridians who are registered with the Democratic Party have a higher tendency to assign responsibility to the state government (23.0%) while registered Republicans more often blame the federal government (15.0%) for rising auto and home insurance rates.
Among Florida voters who are registered without party affiliation or with a party other than Democratic or Republican, 26.0% of them blame insurance companies, 17.9% blame the state government, 6.9% blame the federal government and 45.4% assign blame to more than one of the above.
The cost of insurance in Florida
According to the company Insurify, Florida has by far the highest home insurance rates in the country. Floridians pay the second-highest percentage of their income toward auto insurance costs among all the states. The costs of both of these types of insurance are rising.
The $209 billion insurance industry in Florida is regulated by the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation. Some Floridians opt to purchase flood insurance through the $1.3 trillion National Flood Insurance Program.
The state created a home insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, for homeowners who couldn’t find property insurance in Florida. But as of late February, more than 1.1 million Floridians had policies with Citizens. In February, state regulators approved three private insurance companies to take up to 54,000 policies from Citizens.
Housing
When it comes to the escalating costs for rent and mortgages in Florida, we asked Floridians who say they will vote in November, “When thinking about who is most responsible for the rising cost of housing in Florida, do you think it is mostly the responsibility of individual owners, the state government, the federal government, investment companies, or more than one of the above?”
Floridians again seemed to indicate the cause is complex. The plurality (43.2%) selected more than one. Among those selecting only one, most blamed investment companies for the high costs (21.4%), followed by the state government (14.7%), federal government (12.6%) and the fewest selected individuals (8.1%).
Again there seem to be some slight differences related to political party affiliation. Floridians who are registered with the Democratic Party assign responsibility to the state government (21.7%) at a higher rate, while registered Republicans more often blame the federal government (20.1%) for rising housing costs.
Among Florida voters who are registered without party affiliation or with a party other than Democratic or Republican, 23.6% of them blame investment companies for escalating housing costs, 13.1% blame the state government, 9.1% blame the federal government and 45.6% assign blame to more than one of the above.
The cost of housing in Florida
Florida has one the highest rates of cost-burdened renters in the country. According to an Apartment List analysis of census data, Florida leads the nation with “60.3 percent of renter households burdened by their housing costs (https://www.wmnf.org/florida-leads-nation-in-number-of-cost-burdened-renters/).”
As far as the cost of purchasing a home, the National Association of REALTORS© rates Florida among the least affordable states.
Politics
Earlier this month we released other results from this WMNF Poll of Floridians. We found that more Florida voters said they planned to vote for Trump (47.5%) in November 2024 than for Biden (41.6%), which is outside this poll’s margin of error (2.2%).
We also found that Trump is the favorite of a plurality of voters in all four age categories (18 to 29, 30 to 49, 50 to 69 and 70 and up). Even young voters in Florida who say they will vote in November responded that they prefer Trump (50.8.% of 18- to 29-year-olds) over Biden (32.6%).
And we asked Floridians if they approve of the job Ron DeSantis is doing as governor. 47.4% said yes, 45.2% said no and 7.4% were unsure. 78.2% of Republicans said yes and 76.8% of Democrats said no. Among voters with No Party Affiliation and those registered with other parties, 41.3% approve of the job DeSantis is doing, 49.0% disapprove and 9.7% are unsure.
How we did the WMNF News poll
WMNF News commissioned St. Pete Polls to survey Floridians. Pollsters used the registered voter lists supplied by the State of Florida as of February 6, 2024. Only voters who said they were planning to vote in the November general election were included. We surveyed 1,963 likely Florida general election voters from March 11-13, 2024. The sample of voters that were contacted included random samples of registered voters in Florida. The results have a 2.2% margin of error at a 95% confidence level
The poll was a combination of an automated phone call polling system and a manual P2P SMS polling system. The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents’ demographics and the demographics of the active voter population for the state of Florida. The weighting demographics used were: political party, race, age, gender and media market. 80% of respondents were via phone call and 20% were via SMS texting.
