The Insurance Bill Is Finally Easing. The HOA Bill Is Not.

By Brenden Rendo, Realtor · Updated August 5, 2026

Spend twenty minutes in the comment sections where Central Florida owners talk about their houses and you get one story: the mortgage was never the problem, everything attached to the mortgage is. Insurance. Taxes. Dues. The assessment letter nobody saw coming. Over the last thirty days that conversation has been loud enough to drown out anything about rates or prices. So I pulled the regulator's own numbers against what people are saying, and the two do not match in the direction most people assume. The insurance line is coming down across most of Florida. The association line is not. If you own here, or you are about to, that distinction decides which house you should be worried about.

1. What owners are actually saying this month

I ran a thirty-day sweep of public conversation about Florida carrying costs, ending August 4, 2026. Two themes dominated, and they are not the same theme.

The first is political. Insurance premiums are a campaign issue in a gubernatorial year, so a large share of what looks like homeowner sentiment is actually election content. Posts citing a 200 percent premium increase since 2019 travel further than posts citing this year's filings. That is not a knock on anyone's frustration, which is earned. It is a caution about using social volume as a market indicator, because the loudest data point in that stream is several years stale.

The second theme is the one that matters for anyone transacting: association costs. The most-engaged content was not about premiums at all. It was about HOA foreclosure, about a fee that went from $158 to $1,250 a month in an out-of-state subdivision, about a $20,000 special assessment letter arriving with no warning, about buyers who budgeted a mortgage and never budgeted a board. The consistent through-line is that owners feel exposed to a cost they do not control and cannot predict. That fear is well founded, and unlike the premium narrative, the underlying numbers still support it.

So the pulse and the data disagree on insurance and agree on associations. Worth separating before you make a decision on either.

2. The insurance number is lower than the internet thinks

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation publishes a Property Insurance Stability Report twice a year with actual premiums charged, county by county. The July 2026 edition reflects policies in force as of March 31, 2026. Statewide, the average homeowners premium including wind coverage is $3,757. Average premiums including wind declined in 51 of Florida's 67 counties compared with the January report. You can read the source yourself in the Florida OIR July 2026 Property Insurance Stability Report.

Here is our four-county footprint, straight from that report:

County	Homeowners, with wind	Homeowners, no wind	Condo unit owner, with wind
Orange	$3,610	$2,565	$1,295
Seminole	$3,545	$2,372	$1,202
Volusia	$2,808	$1,637	$1,170
Lake	$2,650	$1,988	$1,092

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, July 2026 Property Insurance Stability Report, data as of March 31, 2026.

Compare those to the numbers you see quoted in national coverage, which frequently land between $6,000 and $9,000 for Florida. Those figures come from quote engines that price a hypothetical policy, usually with a hurricane deductible on a coastal profile, then average it into a statewide headline. They are not what Central Florida owners are being charged. Inland Orange County at $3,610 and Lake County at $2,650 are ordinary Southeast numbers, not crisis numbers.

Two caveats that matter more than the averages. First, an average conceals the tail: an older roof, a 1970s electrical panel, or a prior claim can put a specific house well above these figures, and that is the single most common reason a real quote comes back double what a buyer expected. Second, the wind column is the whole game near the coast. Volusia's with-wind average of $2,808 against $1,637 without wind is the beachside premium in one line. If you are shopping east of I-95, quote insurance before you write the offer, not during inspection period.

3. Why the number moved: Citizens shrank by 80 percent

Premiums did not fall because carriers got generous. They fell because the risk pool reorganized. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort, reported 278,662 policies in force as of June 19, 2026, down from a peak of about 1.41 million in October 2023. That is roughly an 80 percent contraction in under three years, driven by depopulation rounds in which private carriers assume Citizens policies. Current counts are published on the Citizens Property Insurance policies-in-force page.

Private carriers only take those policies when the math works, so the shrinking of Citizens is the clearest available signal that capital came back to Florida property risk. The follow-on is that Citizens itself received approval for a statewide rate reduction averaging 8.8 percent on homeowners multiperil policies, effective for new policies July 1, 2026 and reaching existing policyholders at their renewal date. Wind-only policyholders average a 5.5 percent reduction.

Two practical consequences for owners. If you are still with Citizens and receive a takeout offer, Florida law makes you ineligible to stay when a private offer comes in at not more than 20 percent above your Citizens renewal premium, so the decision is often narrower than people expect. And because Citizens reductions apply at renewal rather than immediately, most households will not see the change until their 2026 or 2027 renewal date arrives. If your renewal already passed this spring, shop it again anyway. In a market where dozens of carriers filed decreases or zero increases, the premium you locked eighteen months ago is not the market.

4. The bill that did not go down: reserves, dues, and assessments

Now the part the pulse gets right.

After Surfside, Florida rewrote how condominium buildings fund their own structural upkeep. SB 4-D, effective May 26, 2022, requires milestone inspections for buildings three stories or higher by the time the building turns 30, or 25 if it sits within three miles of the coast, then every 10 years after. It also requires a structural integrity reserve study, and mandatory reserve funding for those structural items applies to budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024. Associations can no longer vote to waive reserves for roof, structure, waterproofing, and the other designated components. The bill text is public at The Florida Senate, SB 4-D enrolled text.

The 2025 session added flexibility rather than relief. HB 913, effective July 1, 2025, lets unit owners vote to fund reserves through a line of credit or loan instead of full annual funding, provided owners get written notice that reserves will not be fully funded and disclosure of projected future assessments. It also lets a board pause or reduce reserve contributions when a building is declared uninhabitable after a natural emergency until the local building official clears it. Useful tools. Neither one makes a roof cheaper.

Stack that on top of association master insurance policies, which price separately from your unit-owner policy and have not fallen as far, plus deferred maintenance from the years when reserves were legally waivable, and the outcome is arithmetic rather than mismanagement. A building that underfunded reserves for fifteen years now has a legally required funding schedule and a repair backlog arriving at the same time. Owners experience that as a dues increase, a special assessment, or both.

This is also why the HOA foreclosure content is getting traction rather than just outrage clicks. In Florida an association can lien a unit for unpaid assessments and foreclose on that lien independent of the mortgage. An unpaid $20,000 assessment is not a budgeting inconvenience. It is a title problem, and it will stop a sale.

One correction on the viral examples: the $158-to-$1,250 monthly fee case circulating heavily this month is a North Carolina subdivision, not a Florida one. The mechanism is real and the Florida version exists, but do not carry an out-of-state number into your own underwriting.

5. The MLS proof: condos are stalling, houses are not

Sentiment is not evidence. So here is what our own Stellar MLS pull for the week of August 2, 2026 shows across Orange, Seminole, Lake, and Volusia.

Across the four counties there were 13,430 active listings and 1,323 price reductions in seven days. Of the 4,495 listings sitting past 90 days on market, condominium and condo-hotel units accounted for 1,096, or 24.4 percent. Over the same week, condos were only 15.4 percent of new listings. Condos are entering the market at one rate and getting stuck at a substantially higher one.

The county splits sharpen it. Orange: condos are 20.6 percent of new listings, 32.8 percent of the 90-day pool. Seminole: 17.9 percent versus 30.0 percent. Volusia, our coastal county: 17.1 percent versus 29.0 percent. Lake County, which has almost no condo inventory, shows 1.9 percent of new listings and 2.4 percent of the stalled pool, essentially no gap, which is exactly what you would expect if the effect is condo-specific rather than a general market slowdown.

The listings that reach that 90-day tier are not holding out for a better offer. Their median cut is between 6.4 and 6.8 percent depending on county, and between 77 and 85 percent of them are already priced below their original list. Meanwhile the typical fresh price reduction across all property types this week was about 2.4 percent. The gap between a 2.4 percent adjustment and a 6.7 percent one is the cost of not addressing the real objection early.

I covered the underlying two-speed dynamic in more depth in my breakdown of condo versus single-family performance in Central Florida. What is new this month is the mechanism. It is not that buyers dislike condos. It is that a buyer can underwrite a $1,295 unit-owner premium and cannot underwrite an unknown assessment.

6. What this means for buyers, sellers, and investors

Buyers. Split your carrying-cost diligence in two. Insurance is now a solvable, quotable number, and you should get a real bind-able quote on the specific address before your inspection period ends rather than accepting a rule of thumb. Association exposure is the harder one: request the current budget, the most recent reserve study, the milestone inspection status if the building is three stories or higher, and the last twelve months of board minutes. Minutes are where a coming assessment shows up before it becomes a line item. If an association will not produce them promptly, that is your answer. For single-family purchases in an HOA, ask specifically what percentage of the reserve schedule is funded.

Sellers. If you own a condo in Orange, Seminole, or Volusia, price against the 90-day pool, not against the listing down the hall that has been sitting since spring. The data says that pool is cutting 6 to 7 percent and most of it is already under original list. Get ahead of the objection instead: have your association documents, current dues, reserve funding status, and any assessment history assembled before you go live, and disclose them in the listing rather than at contract. A buyer who can price the risk will pay for it. A buyer who cannot will walk. Start with a current valuation from our home value estimator, then we refine it with building-level comps.

Investors. This is where the dislocation is. Falling premiums improve pro formas on single-family rentals across all four counties, and inland Lake and Orange product at $2,650 to $3,610 with wind is materially more financeable than the national narrative suggests. Condos are the opposite trade: the entry discount is real and getting deeper, but the carry is unpredictable until you have read the reserve study. Underwrite the reserve schedule as a capital expense line, not as an operating expense, and treat a fully funded reserve as a premium worth paying up for. An association that funded its reserves on schedule has already spent the money the discount is compensating you for.

One geographic note for anyone comparing this against regional coverage: our footprint is Orange, Seminole, Volusia, and Lake counties. Most Orlando metro aggregates include Osceola County, which carries a different condo and short-term-rental mix. When our condo share numbers look different from a headline elsewhere, that is usually the reason.

7. Frequently asked questions

What is the average homeowners insurance premium in Orlando and Central Florida in 2026?

Per the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's July 2026 Property Insurance Stability Report, reflecting policies in force as of March 31, 2026, the average homeowners premium including wind coverage was $3,610 in Orange County, $3,545 in Seminole County, $2,808 in Volusia County, and $2,650 in Lake County. The statewide average was $3,757. Policies excluding wind coverage run substantially lower, from $1,637 in Volusia to $2,565 in Orange.

Are Florida homeowners insurance rates going down in 2026?

In most counties, yes. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reported that average homeowners premiums including wind coverage declined in 51 of Florida's 67 counties compared with its January 2026 report. Citizens Property Insurance also received approval to cut homeowners multiperil rates by an average of 8.8 percent, effective for new policies July 1, 2026, and for existing policyholders at renewal.

Why are HOA fees and condo assessments still rising in Florida?

Association budgets carry costs that individual policies do not. Since SB 4-D took effect in 2022, condominium buildings three stories or higher must complete milestone inspections and structural integrity reserve studies, and mandatory reserve funding for those items applies to budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024. Associations also carry master insurance policies, deferred maintenance, and labor costs. When reserves were underfunded for years, the catch-up shows up as higher dues or a special assessment.

Can a Florida HOA foreclose on my home for unpaid dues or a special assessment?

Yes. Florida associations can place a lien on a unit for unpaid assessments and pursue foreclosure on that lien, separate from any mortgage. That is why an unpaid special assessment is a title and financing problem, not just a budget problem. Anyone buying into an association should read the current budget, the reserve study, and the last twelve months of board minutes before closing.

Are Central Florida condos harder to sell in 2026 because of HOA costs?

The data says yes. In our four-county Stellar MLS pull for the week of August 2, 2026, condominium and condo-hotel units were 15.4 percent of new listings but 24.4 percent of the pool of listings sitting past 90 days on market. In Volusia County the split was 17.1 percent of new listings versus 29.0 percent of the 90-day pool. Lake County, which has very little condo inventory, showed almost no gap.

What did HB 913 change about Florida condo reserve funding?

HB 913, effective July 1, 2025, added flexibility to the reserve rules. Unit owners may vote to use a line of credit or loan instead of fully funding reserves annually, provided they receive notice that reserves will not be fully funded and disclosure of projected future assessments. It also allows a board to pause or reduce reserve contributions when a building is declared uninhabitable after a natural emergency, until the local building official clears it.

Data sources: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation July 2026 Property Insurance Stability Report (data as of March 31, 2026), Citizens Property Insurance policies-in-force reporting, Florida Senate bill text for SB 4-D (2022) and HB 913 (2025), and our own four-county Stellar MLS pull for the week of August 2, 2026 covering Orange, Seminole, Lake, and Volusia counties. Insurance premiums vary by property, roof age, and claims history; nothing here is an insurance quote or legal advice on association matters. Market conditions change weekly. Figures reflect the dates noted.