Alix Miller: Don’t roll back relief that Florida truckers, consumers are finally seeing

Chances are, everything in your home — from groceries to clothes to appliances — arrived there thanks to a trucker.

Every truck on Florida’s roads represents a team of skilled professionals who keep our economy moving. Our industry is literally where the rubber meets the road, and when overhead costs like insurance increase, it translates to higher costs for truckers, which in turn leads to higher costs for everyday goods.

That’s why the Florida Trucking Association has joined other business groups across the state to urge lawmakers to oppose policies that would increase the cost of doing business — and raise prices for the very men and women who deliver goods across our state daily.

In 2022 and 2023, Florida’s leaders came together to pass meaningful lawsuit reforms aimed at curbing excessive litigation abuse, which had been driving up auto and property insurance premiums for everyone. These tort reforms sought to stabilize the insurance market, encourage competition, and deliver much-needed relief to Florida families and businesses struggling with skyrocketing rates.

Florida’s top leaders tell us those reforms are working. More insurers are entering the market, competition is intensifying, and auto insurance rates are starting to stabilize — and even decrease — for the first time in years.

Yet today, some in Tallahassee are pushing proposals that would reverse this progress. House Bill 947, along with a House amendment to an entirely unrelated Senate bill on phosphate mining (SB 832), would re-open the door to the same lawsuit-friendly environment that once allowed inflated damage claims and let attorneys grab larger shares of settlement agreements. Approving these harmful rollbacks would undo the good-faith reforms that have finally begun healing Florida’s insurance market.

Trucking companies take responsibility for incidents on the road and are committed to making things right for victims. However, they are often targeted by billboard attorneys — just look at the surge in trucking-related ads after 2023 — through nuclear verdicts and especially through exorbitantly inflated medical damages, enabled by the opaque billing practices that were common before the 2023 reforms.

Supporters of these proposals claim they are pro-consumer, seeking to “balance” the system. But in reality, they would tip the scales back toward unchecked legal abuse — benefiting trial lawyers at the direct expense of families, small businesses, and the truckers who keep Florida stocked and supplied.

The trucking industry is deeply concerned about the ripple effects these changes would cause. Affordable insurance isn’t just critical for trucking companies — it’s vital for every Floridian who depends on the goods we deliver. Every new financial burden placed on trucking puts unwanted pressure on prices at the grocery store, clothing rack, and hardware shelf.

Florida truckers keep Florida’s economy moving. But if lawmakers move forward with these misguided rollbacks, they’ll put that progress — and Florida’s broader economic prowess — at risk.

Florida’s economy is finally heading in the right direction. Lawmakers should hit the brakes on HB 947 and the harmful provisions in SB 832 and let the tort reforms continue to work.

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Alix Miller is president and CEO of the Florida Trucking Association.