Just two weeks into the 2025 legislative session, the Florida House of Representatives began an investigation into a newly-discovered 2022 Department of Insurance report about potentially hidden insurance profits.
The testimony from that hearing — given under oath — has raised more questions than answers about the failure to release the report, why it was kept from publication, and who was involved in the decision to keep silent about it.
Current Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky and his immediate predecessor, David Altmaier, appeared before the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee on March 14 to testify about the findings of a 2022 report commissioned by the Florida Department of Insurance.
The hearing was called to shed light on why the report was shelved. In their testimony, the two officials stressed that the report was in draft form and their interpretation of the draft did not indicate that fraud had taken place.
The contents of the report, described in the February 2025 Tampa Bay Times article, tells a different story. Instead of an insurance crisis caused by external forces like storms and claims and lawyers, insurers were claiming to be in financial trouble and demanded tort reform as the only way to solve the crisis, while steering billions of dollars to subsidiary companies in an effort to hide their profits from plain sight.
Testifying under oath, neither official was able to explain why the study, which was commissioned by the Department of Insurance in its regulatory role and produced during the effort to pass tort reform, had not been finalized or published despite years of rising homeowners insurance premiums and legislative efforts to address the insurance crisis in Florida.
At the same time Governor Desantis, Senate President Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner were blaming the insurance crisis on lawyers, lawsuits, and attorneys fee awards, the Office of Insurance Regulation had provided a report to the Governor’s office showing that insurance companies were hiding billions of dollars in profit while publicly claiming to be losing money.
Thus far, there is no explanation for why the report was not published, or who was responsible for that decision. Was it merely coincidental that the report went missing at the very time Governor DeSantis’ office was joining with legislative leaders to push for passage of the insurance industry’s preferred tort reform package?
"This process stopped internally at some point, so you did not have that typical dialogue of exchange between the office and the vendor," said Yaworsky, who has headed the Office of Insurance Regulation since March 2023, on the group that conducted the 2022 report.
"We have looked hard and fast. I do not know [what stopped the process]," he continued. "I think it's possible that they were simply overwhelmed. I don't know particularly why there's no email or document or discussion...I think it just got wound up in a very overwhelming time."
According to the report, insurance subsidiaries made $14 billion when insurance companies said they were losing money.
Acknowledging the $14 billion, Yaworsky stressed that the amount is not limited to Florida companies but includes national ones and the figure does not differentiate between income sources.
Why was the report shelved?
Did the report reveal truths that conflicted with the Governor’s stated reasons for the 2023 tort reform package?
Did the 2023 tort reform package have something to do with Governor DeSantis’ ill-fated run for President?
How rare are coincidences in politics?
So many questions.
According to Open Secrets, the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sector, along with the Transportation sector, donated the most money ($22 million) to Gov. DeSantis in 2024.
Speaker Daniel Perez (R), who is looking to carve out all bureaucratic bloat from the state government, called for the investigation.
