Florida's property insurance crisis threatens the state's commercial real estate market and ultimately, Florida's economy, an industry survey by the University of Florida Center for Real Estate Studies says.

Soaring insurance prices are the top issue for the first time in the quarterly survey of 152 real estate executives, lawyers, and other professionals. The cost of insurance has "gone from a minor operating expense to, in some cases, the largest one," Wayne Archer, the center's director, said Monday. "Our respondents are reporting increases [in insurance premiums] of 300 and 400 percent and some even 1,500 percent."

"If it continues on the trend it is on now, it could have a substantial impact," said Dick Donnellean, chief executive officer of Apartment Realty Advisors in Boca Raton.

William Stander, assistant vice president of the Property and Casualty Insurers Association of America, said insurance was simply taking the blame for a cooling real estate market.

"It's no secret insurance rates are going up," he said. "They're going up because the cost of paying insurance claims is going up. We've paid out $40 billion in the last two years."

Bill Hartwig, the chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, argued that Florida has for years been viewed as a low-cost state, but that was bound to change.

"If you're going to operate a business in the state of Florida that is subject to hurricane risk, then that cost has to be reflected in the cost of insurance," Hartwig said.

The survey showed a majority of industry executives also expect a condominium slowdown, both in the number of apartment-to-condo conversions and in prices. Fully 69 percent of those polled expect condo prices to go up at a rate lower than inflation or to decline.

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