TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Kassy Brewer lives in a beautiful waterfront home in St. Petersburg.

She and her husband bought what they thought would be their forever home five years ago and signed on with Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

“We originally had the insurance for $5,000 a year,” she explained.

Then, they were dropped.

“We went to another insurance policy, and that company went under,” Brewer explained. “Then we went to our third policy.”

It will now cost her $20,000 a year for her flood and homeowners insurance combined.

“If it goes up anymore, what will that mean for you and your husband?” News Channel 8 reporter Nicole Rogers asked.

“Well, if it goes up anymore, I don’t think we can afford to live there,” Brewer replied.

It’s a story all too common in Florida.

Florida’s Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky said he has heard homeowners’ worries and is working to address their concerns.

“I recently got my own property rate increase from my carrier and my first reaction was, ‘how did this happen?'” he said. “Then I realized, I probably approved it.”

“We are all in the middle of this situation,” he said. “It is difficult. It’s been extraordinarily difficult.”

“We’re doing everything we can to bring great stability into this marketplace,” Yaworsky said.

So how did we get here?

“We had too many lawsuits going on in the state for reasons that may not have justified a lawsuit,” Yaworsky said. “Anytime there is a lawsuit in a claim, that affects how much money is in the pool for everybody to get their claims paid.”

He said, that has caused an increase in the cost of insurance.

“That led to these drastic increases, because the insurer kept trying to keep up with the increasing amount of litigation over time,” he said.

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation CEO Tim Cerio agreed, but said there’s another issue at-hand.

“The other thing is inflation,” he said. “The cost of replacing your home if it’s a total loss. So you may have bought a home, just as an example, say somebody bought a home for $300,000 and now it’s worth $500,000.”

“They’re very happy about that for when they want to sell it, but the problem is, to replace that home, it’s exponentially more expensive to do,” Cerio said. “That’s something that’s very, very difficult.”

But what’s being done to fix the problem?

“We’ve created predictability when it comes to litigation, and how litigation is going to be treated moving forward,” Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said. “That creates an investment opportunity where these players want to say, ‘the state of Florida is where I can invest and understand a reasonable return on that investment.'”

We’ve heard it time and time again, ‘change is on the way.’

But many Floridians are saying those changes aren’t happening fast enough.

“The problem is, when these great reforms passed that are helping to turn the market around, it was said at the time, ‘look it’s going to take 18 months, 24 months,” Cerio said. “Hang in there.”

“We’re seeing market recovery,” he said. “We’re seeing more companies coming to Florida.”

Cerio anticipates that will result in insurance rates stabilizing and coming down.

Patronis was asked, “What’s your message to the Floridian that’s barely keeping afloat?”

“When you hear these people that have moved to the state of Florida because of low taxes, but now they see a spike in their cost-of-living because of the insurance — it’s emotional to me,” he said. “Whether it sales tax holidays [or] the governor cutting tolls, we will find other ways to put money back into people’s pockets to hopefully help us weather the financial storm that Washington does not seem to understand that exists.”

Patronis said help is on the way.

“Right now, what is taking place this moment is the insurance companies in the state of Florida are securing their reinsurance,” he said. “What’s happening, in all reports, the reinsurance market has gotten soft: that means it is favorable.”

“It’s all in negotiation right now, but that softened reinsurance market — it’s like the best news I have heard all month,” Patronis said.

If all of these changes are happening, why are so many Floridians not seeing their rates drop?

“The reforms on litigation just went fully into effect on every single policy in the state in December of last year,” Yaworsky said. “So we are just now starting to see the reforms taking place.”

“But we are pressing those companies hard and saying, ‘when you make a rate filing, you need to show us where you are accounting for those legislative changes into this filing,'” he said. “We are going to ask you about it to make sure that you’re accounting for it correctly. But that filing needs to get approved. Once approved, it has to be implemented by the company, which can take an additional number of months. Then the consumer has to have a renewal during that process.”

So, it may take some time before homeowners begin to see these changes reflected in their rates, but Yaworsky assured 8 On Your Side that change is on the way.

In the meantime, there are things policyholders can do to fight for a lower rate.

“Shop around,” Yaworsky said. “There may be a company available that has gone through that process and has reflected those savings in their rate filing which means their policy will reflect those changes. You are never bound to stay with an insurer for an entire year of a contract. You can shop around with one carrier and go with another one anytime you’d like.”