Are Georgia’s Tort Reforms Starting to Pay Off?

Rising insurance premiums for home and auto have long been attributed to the cost of Georgia’s legal landscape. For years, those bills kept climbing, and Georgia frequently ranked among the worst states for lawsuit abuse and excessive tort costs—until lawmakers decided to act. 

Tort reform – the broad effort to change the rules governing civil lawsuits, including how courts determine liability, what evidence juries may consider and how damages are calculated – was the dominant topic of Georgia’s legislative session back in 2025.

Last year, Gov. Kemp and many Georgia lawmakers publicly advocated for reforms to Georgia’s legal environment. These reforms ultimately became Senate Bill 68. This bill, which became law in April 2025, is an omnibus package that changed rules governing premises liability, accounting for medical expenses and trial procedures, including allowing liability and damages to be considered separately in certain cases. The tort reform effort also included Senate Bill 69, which provides for transparency and limits on third-party litigation funding.

Supporters of these reforms argued that, in addition to being an unfair practice, excessive litigation was imposing a hidden cost on nearly every good and service that Georgians buy, particularly insurance. A little over a year after those bills became law, Georgians can begin to analyze their impacts.

Advocates often pointed to other states, like Florida, as evidence of how tort reform could bring positive change. Our neighbor to the south enacted several insurance–litigation reforms in 2022, followed by broader civil-liability legislation in 2023. The state’s insurance commissioner now reports several results consistent with what reform supporters predicted.

Average homeowners’ defense and cost-containment expenses in Florida declined from $992.89 per claim in 2022 to $817.64 in 2024. Personal residential legal-service filings declined 23% between 2023 and 2024, followed by another 26% year-over-year decline during the first 11 months of 2025. Also, Florida’s five largest auto insurance groups, representing about 78% of the market, indicated an average 8% rate reduction for 2026, after collectively requesting a 7.4% reduction for 2025.

In addition, as of May 2026, 20 new property and casualty insurers have entered Florida since the reforms, bringing more than $850 million in capital, while regulators have received more than 190 residential filings requesting decreases or no increase.

Georgia obviously does not yet have Florida’s multiyear record, but its early returns look familiar.

The strongest evidence so far comes from auto insurance filings. For example, State Farm’s reductions totaled more than 10% over roughly a year, with estimated annual savings of $400 million, or approximately $190 per insured vehicle. Allstate filed a 5% reduction, projected to save $17.7 million, and Travelers subsequently filed a 10.1% reduction, representing approximately $40 million in statewide premium savings.

The insurance commissioner’s office has explicitly noted that the early effects of lawsuit-abuse reform are contributing to a more balanced insurance environment. But his office also credits regulatory negotiations, anti-fraud efforts and improving market conditions.

Beyond the auto industry, MARTA’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget reduces casualty and liability costs by $2.8 million, reflecting what officials described as a lower risk profile following tort reform.

These developments are encouraging, but it’s worth noting some caveats. The reforms in question are recent enough that many lawsuits and insurance claims still moving through the system began under Georgia’s previous rules. Additionally, auto insurance rates reflect several other factors, and the insurance commissioner’s office has credited both tort reform and its broader anti-fraud and regulatory efforts.

Florida’s results are a useful guide as time passes. Its experience shows which indicators Georgia should watch over the next several years: litigation frequency, defense expenses, claim costs, insurer participation and, ultimately, the premiums paid by consumers. While tort reform will not solve every problem in the insurance market, the measurements it has produced have generally moved in the direction supporters predicted.