The insurance industry has a truth problem. It regularly peddles false facts to advocate for tort reform.
The latest example is a graphic being circulated claiming Florida insurers’ legal defense costs dropped from $3.46 billion in 2023 to just $107 million in 2024.
Think about what that would actually mean.
A 97% collapse in defense costs.
If that were true, insurance defense firms across Florida would have been devastated. Revenue would have cratered. Partners would have seen massive drops in income. Lawyers and staff would have been laid off by the hundreds.
Some firms would have gone out of business entirely. The effects would have been impossible to miss.
And there’s another problem.
Even if you support Florida’s tort reform legislation, there is no logical reason to believe the effects would have been felt that quickly.
The reforms were enacted in 2023. Throughout 2024, insurers were still defending countless lawsuits that had already been filed before the law changed.
Those cases didn’t magically disappear. Defense lawyers were still getting paid. Discovery was still happening. Depositions were still being taken. Trials were still being prepared.
So how exactly did defense costs supposedly collapse by 97% almost overnight?
Then it gets even better.
I’ve found other insurance-industry sources claiming that direct incurred legal defense expenses were approximately $792 million in 2024, down from $1.6 billion in 2022, and projected to be around $537 million in 2025.
So which is it?
Were defense costs $792 million in 2024?
Or were they $107 million?
Both cannot be true.
The answer, of course, is that statistics are often used as advocacy tools rather than objective facts.
A number gets pulled from one category. Another number gets pulled from a different category. The comparison is presented without context.
The graphic gets shared. The headline gets repeated. And before long, lawmakers are citing it as evidence for taking away legal rights from injured people.
If you’re going to ask legislators to change the law, the least you can do is be honest about the data.
Show the source. Show the methodology. Show exactly what is being measured.
Because when the numbers change depending on who’s making the argument, that’s not analysis. That’s propaganda.
Public policy is too important to be based on propaganda.
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