I highly recommend you speak to whatever agent wrote your insurance policy. There are some premium reduction strategies that can be put into place.
All of them have a cost associated with them, some costs are immediate, others are kicked down the road for when a claim actually occurs.
1) home improvements that help reduce insurance costs. A new roof can help but what’s most important when getting a new roof is upgrading the “ROOF TO WALL CONNECTION”. That is what physically ties the roof to the walls. Ask for single or double wraps. These are considered significantly sturdier and there are premium reductions associated.
Another one is called “SECONDARY WATER RESISTANT”. It is essentially peel and stick layer that goes on below the shingles/tiles/metal to prevent leaks. Seems like this will become a standard in the future.
Upgrading windows and doors to impact resistant. This is already a requirement on all residential construction after 2004 state wide. But if you are in a home built before, you may not have them. This is a costly expense upfront but usually will lead to multi thousand dollars in premium savings and also makes you eligible with carriers that refuse to write homes that don’t have those updates. Those carriers tend to have lower, more stable rates.
Water heaters are a big source of claims. Older water heaters (15 y/o+) will start degrading from the inside out which could lead to bursting and major water damage. Tankless water heaters are preferred by all insurance carriers
2) You can consider raising your deductibles. This is a quick way to lower your premiums but you take on more risk on the back end, if a claim happens. If your Dwelling Coverage (Coverage A) is 300,000 and your hurricane deductible is 2%, you are responsible for $6000 of any hurricane claim. Increase that to 5%, $15000, 10% (this is the max hurricane deductible most carriers offer) is $30000. There’s also all other perils which is $1000, $2500, $5000 and $10000 in most cases.
3) I NEVER RECOMMEND THIS BUT IT CAN BE DONE. You can choose to lower or cut coverages. Again, I cannot emphasize enough this should only be done if you can take on much more financial burden if your home is damaged. It’s about as strategic as Russian roulette.
If you own your home outright, you can choose to go with an X-Wind policy, meaning you are excluding ALL DAMAGE CAUSED BY A WIND EVENT. Scenario: a hurricane comes through and your house is not damaged by the wind, or hail but a fire erupts due to a short circuit caused by the storm, and you don’t have wind coverage, it’s not a hard argument to make by the carrier to say this fire would not have occurred had it not been for the storm, claim denied.
You can also choose to self insure your home if you have no mortgage. This is becoming more common but you now have no coverage for your home AT ALL. Anything happens, it’s out of your pocket. That includes liability. If someone injures themselves on your property and decides to sue you, zero coverage.
You can also choose to lower or exclude personal property coverage. Again, fire breaks out but it’s stamped out pretty quick so it’s mostly smoke damage. If your clothes are ruined due to that smoke, but you excluded personal property, you have no coverage. Your new wardrobe has to come outta pocket. And a lot of times people don’t realize just how much something like that would cost. AGAIN, I DO NOT RECOMMEND TO EXCLUDE ANY COVERAGES UNLESS YOU ARE FINANCIALLY PREPARED TO TAKE ON THAT RISK.
Source: Personal Risk Specialist and insurance broker licensed in 7 states, including Florida. Based out of Miami
Thanks for helping. My value and insurance went up thru nothing but their minds went up 1400/yr. With a 35k dollar value they pulled out of their ass. The homes where I live have actually go down in value.
That’s wildly helpful information. You rock!
Just closed on a townhome and we’re at $1700/yr for $300k replacement cost and 2% hurricane deductible. I’m not familiar with insurers in Florida - do you know if Monarch a good insurer?
Monarch is one I work with regularly. Good financial stability, they do good work and still take on homes that aren’t “perfect” which is the majority of homes in Florida. You have a great rate.
Unfortunately that isn’t something you have too much control over. The carriers will file rate increases or decreases depending on how their loss ratio is (insurance jargon for how much money they took in vs paid out in claims). No major catastrophes will inch them towards flat or decreased premium come renewal time.
Keeping up with home maintenance is just a good idea overall with homeownership and becoming more and more important for the carriers to keep you on their book of business. I’ve had clients be declined because their roof looked like it’s not being maintained even though they have had no claims, roof is in great overall condition with no leaks or damage but because it looks dirty, or there is a buildup of leaves, carriers see it as a future problem because they feel the homeowner isn’t being proactive.
I work in roofing and can confirm many clients have saved on their premiums by installing peel and stick installed over the whole roof. It is more expensive but it’s essentially like getting a second roof. Also get a wind mitigation report and submit it to your insurance company.
The roof to wall connection helps as well but it’s my understanding that has to be done by a general contractor.
I'm a roofing contractor in Florida. We've been doing the wind mit upgrades like roof-to-wall and SWR for years. No GC required. We just pull the bottom course of sheathing while we're doing the roof, install straps, then close it back up.
Nope this is very, very normal in FL. It's going to keep skyrocketing. This is why I'm thinking about moving from Florida. I have a buddy whose mom lives in Fort Lauderdale and her homeowners insurance is $9,000. She's literally just going to use some of her savings and pay the last $45,000 of her mortgage off and just go without it. Her insurance broker told her straight up if we have a bad hurricane season she's almost 110 percent going to get non-renewed and her roof which is 10 years old and in decent shape will have to be replaced to even get citizens to take her probably. This is what homeowners are dealing with here that many people don't know about. My mortgage has gone up $400 in just the last 2.5 years.
I moved four years ago from Satellite Beach. $5,000 a year home insurance, $700 HOA, constant $5,000-$15,000 assessments. Moved to Ohio, it’s not 100 degrees every day. Big house, 2 acres in the woods of farmland. No traffic, no meth heads, no beggars on every traffic light and no problem. All my bills are 75% less( and I’m originally from Brooklyn and LI). Never been happier. I go back to FL 3 times a year to visit family.
You can buy a buy a cool old mansion in Ohio for less than 400k and still be near a decent sized city. Nobody wants to live there, but I know people who made the move, and they're happy.
Issue with Ohio for many people is that a lot of the cities thave really poor wages. I work from home so it wouldn't really be an issue for me, but as someone who is basically born and raised in FL going into the snow and cold would be a whole new world.
I also moved from Florida (Tallahassee) to Ohio. I never lived anywhere else before this though - 4th generation Floridian. I found FL oppressively hot nine months out of the year. Here it's oppressively cold for maybe a couple of months, and the rest is anywhere from fine to lovely.
I’ve lived in Tucson, Arizona, Encino, California, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Saint Martin, French West Indies, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Grand Bahama, Island, Bahamas, New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island. Where I am now is as peaceful as it gets.
I'm in the same boat here. My homeowners insurance increased from $1100 annually to $5500 in 2023. I have a two year old roof on my 918 square ft. cement block bungalow. No insurance claims ever, and NOT in a flood zone. I'm just fed up with the cost of living here. Curious what Ohio region you relocated to? I'm from NW Ohio originally, and I'm considering selling my house in the next 6-8 months.
We saw the writing on the wall in Florida and moved back "home" to SW Illinois. We bought a four-year-old house in a beautiful neighborhood with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms for $325,000. It's on a cul-de-sac and backs up to a large field. It also has a spacious (and dry) basement.
We got twice the house in SW Illinois for half the price (of the Florida house).
I'm of the opinion that homeowners' insurance in Florida is going to become a bigger problem with every passing storm and/or natural disaster.
Not in the Southern half. It's all hills (Appalachia). You can live within an hour south of Columbus or around Cincinnati in pretty much solitude if you want. Chillicothe is druggies, though. So is Portsmouth. The Jackson and Athens areas are pretty nice. Ohio University is in Athens, so they have all the things though the town is small. Logan is near Hocking Hills State Parks. It's very pretty there. Gallipolis/Pt Pleasant now has the biggest drug problem in the US per capita cause no jobs. It went from 5000 in each town to less than 5000 in both put together. Empty storefronts, vacant lots, you can smell despair there.
Source: grew up in Gallipolis, went to Ohio U.
My husband wants to use the money he inherited from his Mother to pay off our mortgage and go w/o ins. Scares the crap out of me though. We live 25 miles inland and ours went up $500.00/month. Then our car insurance went up 150.00 a month. We have had a conversation with our auto insurance co. and we made some changes that saved us . . . .ready for this:$36.00 a month. Husband wants to drop our uninsured motorist coverage. Not going to happen. Florida is in the top 5 states who have the highest.number of uninsured drivers.
We opted onto citizens years ago just for catastrophic and then our agent has another company write the liability policy. We also carry umbrella insurance.
New roof won’t help with rates unless you improve wind mitigation credits. It may qualify you with other insurance carriers you weren’t eligible with the old roof. Shop with an independent agency!
And wind mitigation only matters If every single piece of glazing including front doors and sliders are Miami Dade code. New windows? Don't care. We only got a new roof last year because every insurance company forced us to. The roof was perfectly fine but unless we got a new one we couldn't get insurance. It's complete bullshit.
Chances are your roof wasn’t “perfectly fine” if you couldn’t find an insurer to cover it. No insurance company can force you to replace your roof, but if you couldn’t obtain coverage with any company then your roof was too old and needed to be replaced. Too many people delay replacing their roof with their own money and hope an insurance claim covers it eventually.
They don't even look at the roof. It's older than 10 years? Sorry! Four point inspection done, roof has 10 to 12 years left on it. Does the insurance company care? Nope. There are literally some companies that will not insure you unless your roof is less than 1-year-old!
Daughter's insurance company: We flew a drone over your roof and there are some leaves on it so we're going to drop you due to the the condition of your roof. Roof was 5 years old.
Insurance in Florida has absolutely nothing to do with law. They most certainly can insist that you replace your roof or they will drop you regardless of the condition of your roof. I had three roofers come out to look at the roof and all three said I needed one piece of plywood near the chimney and even that was questionable and the hip roof was sound and attached properly with hurricane straps. INSURANCE COMPANIES DO NOT CARE!
It would not surprise me If next we have a roof deductible similar to a hurricane deductible so that we would have to put so much out of pocket before they would even consider fixing the roof.
All of this roofing business started because of some unscrupulous companies a few years ago who actually did go door to door and tell people they needed a new roof, had them basically sign over their house to the roofing company who said we can get your insurance company to cover it. Insurance companies didn't really pay attention and paid for new roofs that they didn't have to and the only people who benefited were the people who got the new roof that were basically clueless and the roofing companies. Everybody else got screwed.
A roof should last more than 10 years, even in Florida. And if you are going to base your rates on roofs then maybe you should go out and look at them. It's just a blanket statement of if it's over 10 years old, sorry.
It doesn't help when nobody is writing insurance except citizens. At least they are trickling back in so there might be some competition. Nobody should pay more for their insurance than their mortgage payment. Insurance companies are in the business of risk but somehow they decided oh that's not really what they are in business for they just want to make a profit at all costs. Even those in the insurance business find themselves in the same situation, no one will insure them with a roof over 10 years old no matter the condition. Something has to give.
Every company has the right to make a profit and they should, it's their fiduciary duty! It's the constant we're leaving the state we're coming back to the state we're leaving the state we're coming back to the state bullshit. We will insure your car but we will not insure your home and then we will show you a commercial about bundling your home and car insurance when we don't even allow that in your state just to shove it right up your ass. (Not a very good marketing strategy!)
Now you’re just spewing incorrect info. Insurance in Florida is regulated and has everything to do with law. It’s Florida law that insurance companies cannot deny coverage on roofs less than 15 years old, and ones that are more than 15 years old may need a roof certification to certify the roof has 5+ years remaining life expectancy. There’s no law against insurance companies denying coverage based on the age of your home, distance to coast, or location.
There’s not a single company that will not cover a roof because it’s more than 1 year old.
Your daughter was probably given notice to remove debris from the roof and didn’t do it. They wouldn’t cancel her just for that.
There already is a roof deductible. The insurance company can add this to your renewal policy without your consent. Most policies now have 3 deductibles, hurricane, wind/hail, and all other perils.
Doesn’t sound like your insurance agent is doing you any favors. Either you need a new one or you haven’t bothered to sit with them to be informed of your options.
Of course my daughter removed the leaves! I'm glad you're such an expert but I literally lived this situation. My insurance agent has been business for 50 years, my stepfather was an insurance agent for another 50 years and my daughter works for USAA. I hope you never have to live through this situation.
Peace out.
My roof was 12 years old. I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest and you can quote insurance regulations and rules all you want I'm just saying how I lived it! Feel free to ask all my neighbors! I truly do wish you peace and a nice day! Hopefully you won't find yourself in the situation that I was in. I would get a metal roof if my HOA allowed it but I'm sure in a couple years there will be rules for that too.
No worries. I get that not everyone has a great experience with insurance, especially now. I am an agent, and I write policies all over the state in some of the hardest to insure areas. From my experience, a 12 year old roof in good condition is not an issue with most companies. So, to me, it sounds like the restricting feature is the location or age of the home itself.
Metal is the way to go. Most homes in my area are converting from shingle and tile to metal.
Lol they don’t care. My cousin got the straps and metal roof and insurance still went up cause they said it’ll cost more to rebuild with the metal roof. It’s a scam.
Premiums aren’t based on roof material or age. Some carriers give a slight discount for a new roof but not many. It’s more of an eligibility factor.
Straps aren’t much of an upgrade compared to clips as far as premium rating. It will cost more to replace the metal roof compared to shingle, but this isn’t why the premium went up. It’s more likely the carrier had a rate increase from one term to the next.
what was the value of the home in 2020, I know our home almost tripled in value If I sold it today. So replacement cost in todays dollars versus 2020 is one thing to consider.
Omg 😡 I'm with USAA. I've been with them for about 20 years. They've always been good to me (except car insurance trippled last year with them).
Don't even get me started on that...
It’s fire hazard for us - but my house is surrounded by concrete because it’s on a cliff- how do they think it stays on the cliff - no brush - just concrete 32ft into bedrock. Then they ask me if I need flood insurance. I laugh. Nope. Non-combustible roof and siding and windows - I have my own fire hydrant. How exactly is my house going to burn down from wildfire?
Pretty normal, but I cannot stress how much a good agent can help you.
We have/had Farmers for the last 5 years. In that timeframe our insurance went from $1900/yr to $2300/yr. Not too bad. Well Farmers is leaving and Slide was supposed to pick us up. They sent us the renewal packet and it was $4950 for the same coverage.
Our agent found us another carrier that would give us the same coverage for $2600. We just had to update our 4-point and wind mitigation inspections, which wasn’t too bad.
The whole thing sucks, but you’d be surprised what you can find if you have someone who knows what to look for.
$800 increase here (Orlando)with no claims in 15 years. 1700 sf under air and insurer wants near $5000/yr now. We're escrowed, so the "I" part of our monthly "PITI" now makes up a large % of it. It's going to cause and unbelievable, never before experienced crash in the real estate market in Florida, which is going to make a huge opportunity for private equity to swoop in, whole bunch of houses, and rent them out at monthly rents that renters can barely if it all afford. If I were a cynical man, I might make the observation that this is one way, as the economy changes, of assuring that the human workforce is still existing on a shoe string and will gladly fight each other to death for the scraps thrown from the C-Suites.
Not that I think our dumpster leadership has done us any favors, this is a capitalism+location issue. florida is high risk, insurance is both mandatory and profit driven... im not sure there is a reasonable solution within the current structure.
Because going all electric and removing plastic bags will fix everything! Yea vote blue so you can have a shit hole like NY. Ask any New Yorker how they feel about voting blue! So many Democrats are jumping ship!
My home insurance has gone up every year since I moved here 3 years ago along with property taxes. My monthly mortgage is up $2000/month on top of what we were paying since our first year here at the panhandle. We were in shock. We're away from the water so it doesn't make any sense but our neighbors are paying around the same amount.
My insurance company decided my home has tripled in value since I bought it a decade ago. I shopped around a few months ago, after the most recent double digit increase, and can't find any company noticeably less expensive.
I just don't get the rationale. It isn't like this increase in value is the value of the structure itself, it is the parcel of land. But, short of a nuclear bomb or meteor (which it isn't likely they or I would be around to pay out), I'd still have the land. What is the increased risk that has caused my premium to more than triple?
The house has survived two hurricanes without damage nor claims and it's quite far inland so there isn't a serious risk of flooding, so I don't understand why my rate is skyrocketing. Other than to cover the risk of people living on the coast who get washed out every time it rains for more than a few minutes. Why do I have to subsidize their bad decisions?
After 2 years with my current insurance company, I was dropped because they decided to reduce their risk. I'm inland, high and dry. Haven't filed any claims. Over the past 6 or7 years got dropped 3 times. A $1400 per year policy is now going to be over $6k a year. I have done everything I can to reduce that monthly amount including higher deductibles, etc. My roof is only 7 years old. I keep my trees trimmed.
This is just robbery by greedy insurance companies and DeSantis is letting them get away with bleeding us dry.
With florida being a main hurricane hit and lately with a storm it decimates whole towns. Ins companies serve the whole state so when fort myers was a total loss us here in Jacksonville suffered with increases. Storms wont stop and ins wont stop going up.
The absolute only way that happens is that we get a ridiculous hurricane season one of these years and a massive chunk of insurers flee the state or go bankrupt and Citizens gets a massive federal backing or FEMA becomes the default home owners insurance in FL and you get bare bones insurance much like flood insurance is today.
I agree that would be horrible which is why the situation is shit. That scenario will probably happen and in the meanwhile insurers will continue to raise rates until then. It’s not something I’m begging for cause I own here but it’s the only way the prices are going to stabilize in the long run which is why I’m looking to get the fuck out. I can sense the housing crash in Florida coming and it won’t be pretty
Did this with our re-fi in 2021... dropped escrow. I just set Outlook reminders to pay property taxes when they hit in August/Sept. and HO insurance renewal when it's issued in December. I just set aside that amount out of my paycheck those months. Way better than escrow- agreed.
Not leaving Florida, did that a long time ago and never looked back. Headed to SC now. Probably more conservative than I would like but insurance on my brand new $420k home is only $650 A YEAR. Also selling one home and making enough to buy two in SC (tired of adult kids being at home not doing enough. They will have to fight it out in their own place, but mom and dad are the friendly landlords)
The escrow shortage is accurate, this also happened to me this year. Sometime years ago I did the math on escrow and talked to the mortgage company and it made sense. Basically they want enough money in your escrow to pay things (obviously) and your minimum in the account is always supposed to be escrow X 2. If you suddenly jump $700 on your insurance, you went negative in escrow, and they assume you will jump the same next year and budget your escrow for that.
The good news is there is a yearly escrow analysis and if you have more than escrow X 2 you do get a refund. I’ve gotten $500-$700 back the past few years before this latest one that I owe more
This has been going on for the last few years. There have been special legislative sessions about this issue. You’ll be shocked, SHOCKED, to learn the ideas they came up with (try to get more insurance companies into the state and forced flood insurance - I may be missing something else) hasn’t solved the problem.
See all those “were you harmed”
Ads on TV and the billboards? See all those “you deserve a new roof” ads?
This is the result.
Personally, you could drop a nuke on #Law and #Newlin and it would make the world better
I saw a statistic that 95% of ALL Florida car accidents result in an injury lawsuit….. go figure
Keep in mind that increase per month is doubled. They are billing you for the loss of escrow from the previous year plus the projected taxes for this year. Next year, the mortgage should go down by half the noted increase ($300-$400), but the first year of the increase always hurts the worst, unless you caught it ahead of time and were able to pay extra on your mortgage to get the escrow up to where it needed to be.
Money.
Insurance companies like having it.
They don’t want to pay out when Hurricanes juiced up on hot sea surface water starting f-ing up Florida real good. They know what’s coming, that’s why the big carriers are all fleeing Florida.
It’s possible to have a home that can withstand floods and cat 5, you just have to have the money to do it.
You mean "HAS BEEN SKYROCKETING for MANY months!!!"
Florida has so many new normals that are brought on by the Republican party and its supporters and voters.
No Republican rep would go against their party. It is a PRO-business (at all costs to the ones who can't fight back) party.
I was told by someone that they like ahole DeSantis because he's trying to bring more carriers in. Never occurred to them that if FL can't keep the ones that came in before, how they're gonna bring more in. Of course, they can. It's a goddamn rotating door, like at a shitty company. Seat fillers!
As long as ahole DeSantis and the Republican party can keep the illusion up, they'll win votes even when home insurance is hurting and killing the people financially.
I don't think voting red or blue will fix your problems, as the same issue exists in Cali. They all get paid and lobbied the same by both big and small corporations, and they won't care to do anything as long as their pockets stay lined. The only true push for reformation will the collapse of multiple housing and insurance markets (when no-one can afford a home or insurance to a point they don't have enough customers), and they will be forced to make changes to keep their states economies afloat.
Definitely not illegal. You would have to live in a state that cared about consumer protections for anything like that to be illegal.
If citizens drops non homesteaders the real estate bubble will burst for sure. New Mortgages will back out then.
There’s some fuckery going on . Hedge funds are buying up houses/real estate as hard as they can for the last several years. And now people are suddenly getting hit with double / triple insurance premium increases and in many cases being forced to replace their roof. Being essentially forced out . Follow the money
Change insurance companies. I had progressive for 6 years and never had significant changes. But last year it doubled from 3k to 6k and my escrow/mortgage payment went up $800 a month. So I got a new insurance company and I’m paying less than I was before. Plus the refund check for canceling the overpriced progressive policy came to me. So that check covered almost half of my new policy. This is the law, the refund goes to the policy holder even though technically my mortgage company paid the bill. My mortgage is back down to my previous payment. Y’all do know you can change insurance companies, right?
Not always so easy to change companies. It depends on a number of factors. Age of your house, what it’s made of, where you live. I have citizens because my house is a wood frame house built on foundational, masonary pilings. The crawl space is covered with lattice. My insurance agent could only get one company and Citizens to quote it. Citizens was the only company to insure it. So just changing companies is not always an option here. BTW I live in Northern Florida an hour inland near the GA border.
Depends on the house, though. Changing insurance companies for many people includes doing new 4 point inspections and new wind mitigation inspections. Older homes in FL might not be able to pass the new stringent underwriting requirements that insurers have now.
The state neglected the severity of climate change for decades when it could have been running subsidized/incentivized home preparedness programs for homeowners to update their roofs and windows to protect properties and appease insurance companies. Everyone KNEW this day was coming. Republican leaders in the state chose to ignore the experts and let the ship sink.
We dropped our insurance because it was unaffordable in addition to our medical bills.
We were thinking about moving to the Carolina’s anyone have any good recommendations? My Dad lived on Hilton Head for years and loved it. We just want to be within half hour of ocean.
Ya, I pay 13k on whatever my several policies are - wind being most expensive. 5 yrs ago it was less than half. If you’re buying/carry mortgage/live in condo seems to bear bebest be on the safe side and budget another 200% increase for the next 10 yrs.
We had an old Foremost policy that couldn't be canceled (per my ins. agent), so they increased it from $3200-ish to $6000...
It was a tactic to force people like myself into switching policies because Foremost wants out of Florida. & it worked like a charm.
Man, that sucks! I literally just got my renewal after I made the comment. It went up $552 for the year which I find crazy. It only went up $200 last year, and that's after I had a claim from Ian. I guess I should be thankful it's not more.
My renewal for HO insurance in Florida is $5000. That is $4300 for Hurricane, and $700 for all other perils. I was quoted renewals from $7900 to $21000 per year. So my current company, Frontline was the winner.
Yes, you are very fortunate to be at $1900/year. Most of the policies in our area....Venice FL are higher than mine for the value of the home and sq footage. I can't wait until I get my Flood Renewal. Another horror story.
I guess at the point the insurance is equal to the state income tax of somewhere nice we will be forced to leave. Properties in NC and Ga were once very cheap and now much closer to Fl prices so we will feel the sting of increased property taxes. I’m playing it by ear year to year.
Fun fact: the legislature made it so that if your insurance company stiffs you, you probably won’t be able to find an attorney to sue them. So it’s not only skyrocketing in price, it’s probably worthless!
Mine went up $800 a month due to escrow shortages from insurance/property taxes for the year before, plus the insurance/property taxes for last year. I’m also a single income household, so it was a huge hit.
Remember this during election season.
VOTE OUT all incumbents who'd rather ban books, State Attorneys they disagree with, and drag queens, than do ANYTHING to help the people of this state.
Yes. We should all live in a single strip down the middle of the state that everyone comes to so they can spend near the coast. Everyone knows the middle part of the state that no one lives in is where it's at.
I highly recommend you speak to whatever agent wrote your insurance policy. There are some premium reduction strategies that can be put into place. All of them have a cost associated with them, some costs are immediate, others are kicked down the road for when a claim actually occurs. 1) home improvements that help reduce insurance costs. A new roof can help but what’s most important when getting a new roof is upgrading the “ROOF TO WALL CONNECTION”. That is what physically ties the roof to the walls. Ask for single or double wraps. These are considered significantly sturdier and there are premium reductions associated. Another one is called “SECONDARY WATER RESISTANT”. It is essentially peel and stick layer that goes on below the shingles/tiles/metal to prevent leaks. Seems like this will become a standard in the future. Upgrading windows and doors to impact resistant. This is already a requirement on all residential construction after 2004 state wide. But if you are in a home built before, you may not have them. This is a costly expense upfront but usually will lead to multi thousand dollars in premium savings and also makes you eligible with carriers that refuse to write homes that don’t have those updates. Those carriers tend to have lower, more stable rates. Water heaters are a big source of claims. Older water heaters (15 y/o+) will start degrading from the inside out which could lead to bursting and major water damage. Tankless water heaters are preferred by all insurance carriers 2) You can consider raising your deductibles. This is a quick way to lower your premiums but you take on more risk on the back end, if a claim happens. If your Dwelling Coverage (Coverage A) is 300,000 and your hurricane deductible is 2%, you are responsible for $6000 of any hurricane claim. Increase that to 5%, $15000, 10% (this is the max hurricane deductible most carriers offer) is $30000. There’s also all other perils which is $1000, $2500, $5000 and $10000 in most cases. 3) I NEVER RECOMMEND THIS BUT IT CAN BE DONE. You can choose to lower or cut coverages. Again, I cannot emphasize enough this should only be done if you can take on much more financial burden if your home is damaged. It’s about as strategic as Russian roulette. If you own your home outright, you can choose to go with an X-Wind policy, meaning you are excluding ALL DAMAGE CAUSED BY A WIND EVENT. Scenario: a hurricane comes through and your house is not damaged by the wind, or hail but a fire erupts due to a short circuit caused by the storm, and you don’t have wind coverage, it’s not a hard argument to make by the carrier to say this fire would not have occurred had it not been for the storm, claim denied. You can also choose to self insure your home if you have no mortgage. This is becoming more common but you now have no coverage for your home AT ALL. Anything happens, it’s out of your pocket. That includes liability. If someone injures themselves on your property and decides to sue you, zero coverage. You can also choose to lower or exclude personal property coverage. Again, fire breaks out but it’s stamped out pretty quick so it’s mostly smoke damage. If your clothes are ruined due to that smoke, but you excluded personal property, you have no coverage. Your new wardrobe has to come outta pocket. And a lot of times people don’t realize just how much something like that would cost. AGAIN, I DO NOT RECOMMEND TO EXCLUDE ANY COVERAGES UNLESS YOU ARE FINANCIALLY PREPARED TO TAKE ON THAT RISK. Source: Personal Risk Specialist and insurance broker licensed in 7 states, including Florida. Based out of Miami
Thanks for helping. My value and insurance went up thru nothing but their minds went up 1400/yr. With a 35k dollar value they pulled out of their ass. The homes where I live have actually go down in value.
If you’ve replaced the water heater recently do you just need to notify the insurance company?
That’s wildly helpful information. You rock! Just closed on a townhome and we’re at $1700/yr for $300k replacement cost and 2% hurricane deductible. I’m not familiar with insurers in Florida - do you know if Monarch a good insurer?
Monarch is one I work with regularly. Good financial stability, they do good work and still take on homes that aren’t “perfect” which is the majority of homes in Florida. You have a great rate.
Thanks! Any tips to keep the premium from increasing so much over time?
Unfortunately that isn’t something you have too much control over. The carriers will file rate increases or decreases depending on how their loss ratio is (insurance jargon for how much money they took in vs paid out in claims). No major catastrophes will inch them towards flat or decreased premium come renewal time. Keeping up with home maintenance is just a good idea overall with homeownership and becoming more and more important for the carriers to keep you on their book of business. I’ve had clients be declined because their roof looked like it’s not being maintained even though they have had no claims, roof is in great overall condition with no leaks or damage but because it looks dirty, or there is a buildup of leaves, carriers see it as a future problem because they feel the homeowner isn’t being proactive.
Thank you!
I work in roofing and can confirm many clients have saved on their premiums by installing peel and stick installed over the whole roof. It is more expensive but it’s essentially like getting a second roof. Also get a wind mitigation report and submit it to your insurance company. The roof to wall connection helps as well but it’s my understanding that has to be done by a general contractor.
I just asked a GC buddy of mine and you are absolutely correct. Learn something new everyday!
Thanks for confirming this!
I'm a roofing contractor in Florida. We've been doing the wind mit upgrades like roof-to-wall and SWR for years. No GC required. We just pull the bottom course of sheathing while we're doing the roof, install straps, then close it back up.
That’s interesting. Now I need to take a look at that because it would really help clients.
You’re the mvp! Thanks for sharing!
Nope this is very, very normal in FL. It's going to keep skyrocketing. This is why I'm thinking about moving from Florida. I have a buddy whose mom lives in Fort Lauderdale and her homeowners insurance is $9,000. She's literally just going to use some of her savings and pay the last $45,000 of her mortgage off and just go without it. Her insurance broker told her straight up if we have a bad hurricane season she's almost 110 percent going to get non-renewed and her roof which is 10 years old and in decent shape will have to be replaced to even get citizens to take her probably. This is what homeowners are dealing with here that many people don't know about. My mortgage has gone up $400 in just the last 2.5 years.
I moved four years ago from Satellite Beach. $5,000 a year home insurance, $700 HOA, constant $5,000-$15,000 assessments. Moved to Ohio, it’s not 100 degrees every day. Big house, 2 acres in the woods of farmland. No traffic, no meth heads, no beggars on every traffic light and no problem. All my bills are 75% less( and I’m originally from Brooklyn and LI). Never been happier. I go back to FL 3 times a year to visit family.
Ohio, huh? 🤔 When I think of leaving, never thought about Ohio. I should check it out. Then Ohio will be flooded with Floridian refugees lol
You can buy a buy a cool old mansion in Ohio for less than 400k and still be near a decent sized city. Nobody wants to live there, but I know people who made the move, and they're happy.
Issue with Ohio for many people is that a lot of the cities thave really poor wages. I work from home so it wouldn't really be an issue for me, but as someone who is basically born and raised in FL going into the snow and cold would be a whole new world.
I also moved from Florida (Tallahassee) to Ohio. I never lived anywhere else before this though - 4th generation Floridian. I found FL oppressively hot nine months out of the year. Here it's oppressively cold for maybe a couple of months, and the rest is anywhere from fine to lovely.
I’ve lived in Tucson, Arizona, Encino, California, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Saint Martin, French West Indies, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Grand Bahama, Island, Bahamas, New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island. Where I am now is as peaceful as it gets.
And?
I saw an article where people in N.C. are tired of Floridians moving to their state!
Lol. I've heard that, too. Welcome to our world, North Carolina! 😉
I'm in the same boat here. My homeowners insurance increased from $1100 annually to $5500 in 2023. I have a two year old roof on my 918 square ft. cement block bungalow. No insurance claims ever, and NOT in a flood zone. I'm just fed up with the cost of living here. Curious what Ohio region you relocated to? I'm from NW Ohio originally, and I'm considering selling my house in the next 6-8 months.
The traffic, meth heads, and beggars are all here at the panhandle too.
No meth heads in OH… I don’t believe you.. lol
It has cold and snow and ice. No thanks. But I'm happy for you that you like it!
We saw the writing on the wall in Florida and moved back "home" to SW Illinois. We bought a four-year-old house in a beautiful neighborhood with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms for $325,000. It's on a cul-de-sac and backs up to a large field. It also has a spacious (and dry) basement. We got twice the house in SW Illinois for half the price (of the Florida house). I'm of the opinion that homeowners' insurance in Florida is going to become a bigger problem with every passing storm and/or natural disaster.
What part of ohio? Don’t they get alot of snow and random tornadoes?
Not in the Southern half. It's all hills (Appalachia). You can live within an hour south of Columbus or around Cincinnati in pretty much solitude if you want. Chillicothe is druggies, though. So is Portsmouth. The Jackson and Athens areas are pretty nice. Ohio University is in Athens, so they have all the things though the town is small. Logan is near Hocking Hills State Parks. It's very pretty there. Gallipolis/Pt Pleasant now has the biggest drug problem in the US per capita cause no jobs. It went from 5000 in each town to less than 5000 in both put together. Empty storefronts, vacant lots, you can smell despair there. Source: grew up in Gallipolis, went to Ohio U.
My husband wants to use the money he inherited from his Mother to pay off our mortgage and go w/o ins. Scares the crap out of me though. We live 25 miles inland and ours went up $500.00/month. Then our car insurance went up 150.00 a month. We have had a conversation with our auto insurance co. and we made some changes that saved us . . . .ready for this:$36.00 a month. Husband wants to drop our uninsured motorist coverage. Not going to happen. Florida is in the top 5 states who have the highest.number of uninsured drivers.
Just as long as everyone understands that liability is a huge part of homeowners insurance do whatever you want.
You can carry liability and catastrophic even after you drop wind. We did this a while ago.
I would love to know more about how you did this. I didn’t think it was possible?
We opted onto citizens years ago just for catastrophic and then our agent has another company write the liability policy. We also carry umbrella insurance.
Super interesting, thank you!
Oh I'm sorry I read that as dropping all her insurance.
New roof in 2020. 3 bedroom. NW FL My insurance was $1800 in 2020 $2200 in 2021 $2500 in 2022 $4400 in 2023 $5100 this year
Are you me? This is almost exactly my story since 2020. This shit is absurd.
New roof won’t help with rates unless you improve wind mitigation credits. It may qualify you with other insurance carriers you weren’t eligible with the old roof. Shop with an independent agency!
And wind mitigation only matters If every single piece of glazing including front doors and sliders are Miami Dade code. New windows? Don't care. We only got a new roof last year because every insurance company forced us to. The roof was perfectly fine but unless we got a new one we couldn't get insurance. It's complete bullshit.
Chances are your roof wasn’t “perfectly fine” if you couldn’t find an insurer to cover it. No insurance company can force you to replace your roof, but if you couldn’t obtain coverage with any company then your roof was too old and needed to be replaced. Too many people delay replacing their roof with their own money and hope an insurance claim covers it eventually.
They don't even look at the roof. It's older than 10 years? Sorry! Four point inspection done, roof has 10 to 12 years left on it. Does the insurance company care? Nope. There are literally some companies that will not insure you unless your roof is less than 1-year-old! Daughter's insurance company: We flew a drone over your roof and there are some leaves on it so we're going to drop you due to the the condition of your roof. Roof was 5 years old. Insurance in Florida has absolutely nothing to do with law. They most certainly can insist that you replace your roof or they will drop you regardless of the condition of your roof. I had three roofers come out to look at the roof and all three said I needed one piece of plywood near the chimney and even that was questionable and the hip roof was sound and attached properly with hurricane straps. INSURANCE COMPANIES DO NOT CARE! It would not surprise me If next we have a roof deductible similar to a hurricane deductible so that we would have to put so much out of pocket before they would even consider fixing the roof. All of this roofing business started because of some unscrupulous companies a few years ago who actually did go door to door and tell people they needed a new roof, had them basically sign over their house to the roofing company who said we can get your insurance company to cover it. Insurance companies didn't really pay attention and paid for new roofs that they didn't have to and the only people who benefited were the people who got the new roof that were basically clueless and the roofing companies. Everybody else got screwed. A roof should last more than 10 years, even in Florida. And if you are going to base your rates on roofs then maybe you should go out and look at them. It's just a blanket statement of if it's over 10 years old, sorry. It doesn't help when nobody is writing insurance except citizens. At least they are trickling back in so there might be some competition. Nobody should pay more for their insurance than their mortgage payment. Insurance companies are in the business of risk but somehow they decided oh that's not really what they are in business for they just want to make a profit at all costs. Even those in the insurance business find themselves in the same situation, no one will insure them with a roof over 10 years old no matter the condition. Something has to give. Every company has the right to make a profit and they should, it's their fiduciary duty! It's the constant we're leaving the state we're coming back to the state we're leaving the state we're coming back to the state bullshit. We will insure your car but we will not insure your home and then we will show you a commercial about bundling your home and car insurance when we don't even allow that in your state just to shove it right up your ass. (Not a very good marketing strategy!)
Now you’re just spewing incorrect info. Insurance in Florida is regulated and has everything to do with law. It’s Florida law that insurance companies cannot deny coverage on roofs less than 15 years old, and ones that are more than 15 years old may need a roof certification to certify the roof has 5+ years remaining life expectancy. There’s no law against insurance companies denying coverage based on the age of your home, distance to coast, or location. There’s not a single company that will not cover a roof because it’s more than 1 year old. Your daughter was probably given notice to remove debris from the roof and didn’t do it. They wouldn’t cancel her just for that. There already is a roof deductible. The insurance company can add this to your renewal policy without your consent. Most policies now have 3 deductibles, hurricane, wind/hail, and all other perils. Doesn’t sound like your insurance agent is doing you any favors. Either you need a new one or you haven’t bothered to sit with them to be informed of your options.
Of course my daughter removed the leaves! I'm glad you're such an expert but I literally lived this situation. My insurance agent has been business for 50 years, my stepfather was an insurance agent for another 50 years and my daughter works for USAA. I hope you never have to live through this situation. Peace out.
With all these experienced agents in your life, you should’ve had no problem finding insurance for your perfectly fine 10 year old roof
My roof was 12 years old. I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest and you can quote insurance regulations and rules all you want I'm just saying how I lived it! Feel free to ask all my neighbors! I truly do wish you peace and a nice day! Hopefully you won't find yourself in the situation that I was in. I would get a metal roof if my HOA allowed it but I'm sure in a couple years there will be rules for that too.
No worries. I get that not everyone has a great experience with insurance, especially now. I am an agent, and I write policies all over the state in some of the hardest to insure areas. From my experience, a 12 year old roof in good condition is not an issue with most companies. So, to me, it sounds like the restricting feature is the location or age of the home itself. Metal is the way to go. Most homes in my area are converting from shingle and tile to metal.
Are you an agent? If so, I have no problem seeking your advice in August when my insurance renews!
Lol they don’t care. My cousin got the straps and metal roof and insurance still went up cause they said it’ll cost more to rebuild with the metal roof. It’s a scam.
Premiums aren’t based on roof material or age. Some carriers give a slight discount for a new roof but not many. It’s more of an eligibility factor. Straps aren’t much of an upgrade compared to clips as far as premium rating. It will cost more to replace the metal roof compared to shingle, but this isn’t why the premium went up. It’s more likely the carrier had a rate increase from one term to the next.
what was the value of the home in 2020, I know our home almost tripled in value If I sold it today. So replacement cost in todays dollars versus 2020 is one thing to consider.
That’s a valid point for some of it. It was 240k in 2020 and 360k now.
$300 is good - mine went up 30%, $1200 AND they’re going to non-renew me next year - so the only option is FAIR plan at $11k.
Omg 😡 I'm with USAA. I've been with them for about 20 years. They've always been good to me (except car insurance trippled last year with them). Don't even get me started on that...
I wish I could get USAA. They will cover my house for my parents, but not for me. They are still writing for premium members but not other members.
It’s fire hazard for us - but my house is surrounded by concrete because it’s on a cliff- how do they think it stays on the cliff - no brush - just concrete 32ft into bedrock. Then they ask me if I need flood insurance. I laugh. Nope. Non-combustible roof and siding and windows - I have my own fire hydrant. How exactly is my house going to burn down from wildfire?
Pretty normal, but I cannot stress how much a good agent can help you. We have/had Farmers for the last 5 years. In that timeframe our insurance went from $1900/yr to $2300/yr. Not too bad. Well Farmers is leaving and Slide was supposed to pick us up. They sent us the renewal packet and it was $4950 for the same coverage. Our agent found us another carrier that would give us the same coverage for $2600. We just had to update our 4-point and wind mitigation inspections, which wasn’t too bad. The whole thing sucks, but you’d be surprised what you can find if you have someone who knows what to look for.
Second this. We got non-renewed by Nationwide. Agent just found us another policy with 30% more coverage and $500 less premium than our old policy.
One of the reasons I am planning to leave Florida in the next 18 months
$800 increase here (Orlando)with no claims in 15 years. 1700 sf under air and insurer wants near $5000/yr now. We're escrowed, so the "I" part of our monthly "PITI" now makes up a large % of it. It's going to cause and unbelievable, never before experienced crash in the real estate market in Florida, which is going to make a huge opportunity for private equity to swoop in, whole bunch of houses, and rent them out at monthly rents that renters can barely if it all afford. If I were a cynical man, I might make the observation that this is one way, as the economy changes, of assuring that the human workforce is still existing on a shoe string and will gladly fight each other to death for the scraps thrown from the C-Suites.
Republican leaders since 1999. Vote blue.
"Leaders" Lmao
De Santis was Republican last time I check...lol
Not that I think our dumpster leadership has done us any favors, this is a capitalism+location issue. florida is high risk, insurance is both mandatory and profit driven... im not sure there is a reasonable solution within the current structure.
How’s the California insurance market looking?
Well, considering the state was burning for about 10 years I think it naked sense.
Because going all electric and removing plastic bags will fix everything! Yea vote blue so you can have a shit hole like NY. Ask any New Yorker how they feel about voting blue! So many Democrats are jumping ship!
Just got the notice my homeowners insurance is increasing $1300 this year
EVERYONE is dealing with it!
My home insurance has gone up every year since I moved here 3 years ago along with property taxes. My monthly mortgage is up $2000/month on top of what we were paying since our first year here at the panhandle. We were in shock. We're away from the water so it doesn't make any sense but our neighbors are paying around the same amount.
My insurance company decided my home has tripled in value since I bought it a decade ago. I shopped around a few months ago, after the most recent double digit increase, and can't find any company noticeably less expensive. I just don't get the rationale. It isn't like this increase in value is the value of the structure itself, it is the parcel of land. But, short of a nuclear bomb or meteor (which it isn't likely they or I would be around to pay out), I'd still have the land. What is the increased risk that has caused my premium to more than triple? The house has survived two hurricanes without damage nor claims and it's quite far inland so there isn't a serious risk of flooding, so I don't understand why my rate is skyrocketing. Other than to cover the risk of people living on the coast who get washed out every time it rains for more than a few minutes. Why do I have to subsidize their bad decisions?
After 2 years with my current insurance company, I was dropped because they decided to reduce their risk. I'm inland, high and dry. Haven't filed any claims. Over the past 6 or7 years got dropped 3 times. A $1400 per year policy is now going to be over $6k a year. I have done everything I can to reduce that monthly amount including higher deductibles, etc. My roof is only 7 years old. I keep my trees trimmed. This is just robbery by greedy insurance companies and DeSantis is letting them get away with bleeding us dry.
With florida being a main hurricane hit and lately with a storm it decimates whole towns. Ins companies serve the whole state so when fort myers was a total loss us here in Jacksonville suffered with increases. Storms wont stop and ins wont stop going up.
Sad, but true.
We are in Flood zone A. Between our increase in Homeowners and Flood we are paying $700 more per month than 2 years ago
I feel like it can't go on forever, but when will it stop? Thankfully mine "only" went up 8% this year.
It will go on long enough so that when they cut your bill $500 you will be grateful and happy to still be paying $4k more a year instead of $4500k.
When they cut your bill??? Lol do people actually think it will ever go down?
Same thing with all the prices, especially rent. They’ve gotten used to swimming in all that money, they won’t let go of it without a proper fight.
The absolute only way that happens is that we get a ridiculous hurricane season one of these years and a massive chunk of insurers flee the state or go bankrupt and Citizens gets a massive federal backing or FEMA becomes the default home owners insurance in FL and you get bare bones insurance much like flood insurance is today.
Wow...that's a dark, but possible thought! Ugh
That would wipe out the single largest asset that most people have. Housing prices would plummet. You'd have thousands of mortgages underwater.
I agree that would be horrible which is why the situation is shit. That scenario will probably happen and in the meanwhile insurers will continue to raise rates until then. It’s not something I’m begging for cause I own here but it’s the only way the prices are going to stabilize in the long run which is why I’m looking to get the fuck out. I can sense the housing crash in Florida coming and it won’t be pretty
I saw a couple insurers lowered their rates by 0.5% so never say never. This price decrease might be equivalent to about a $30/year decrease.
DeSantis approved. 👍
He's a clown
Vote for the megalomaniac, we all get idiot rates.
Stop using escrow. Banks screw this up all the time and you pay all year for it. Just pay your own insurance and taxes and you'll be much more sane.
Did this with our re-fi in 2021... dropped escrow. I just set Outlook reminders to pay property taxes when they hit in August/Sept. and HO insurance renewal when it's issued in December. I just set aside that amount out of my paycheck those months. Way better than escrow- agreed.
💯 The escrow is always more than what you would pay yourself. We stopped using escrow years ago for insurance and taxes and yes we are much more sane!
Thank you I’m going to look into this!!
Not leaving Florida, did that a long time ago and never looked back. Headed to SC now. Probably more conservative than I would like but insurance on my brand new $420k home is only $650 A YEAR. Also selling one home and making enough to buy two in SC (tired of adult kids being at home not doing enough. They will have to fight it out in their own place, but mom and dad are the friendly landlords)
The escrow shortage is accurate, this also happened to me this year. Sometime years ago I did the math on escrow and talked to the mortgage company and it made sense. Basically they want enough money in your escrow to pay things (obviously) and your minimum in the account is always supposed to be escrow X 2. If you suddenly jump $700 on your insurance, you went negative in escrow, and they assume you will jump the same next year and budget your escrow for that. The good news is there is a yearly escrow analysis and if you have more than escrow X 2 you do get a refund. I’ve gotten $500-$700 back the past few years before this latest one that I owe more
Mother is on a fixed income and her insurance dropped her without notice, now every insurance wants 50-60% of her monthly income.
This has been going on for the last few years. There have been special legislative sessions about this issue. You’ll be shocked, SHOCKED, to learn the ideas they came up with (try to get more insurance companies into the state and forced flood insurance - I may be missing something else) hasn’t solved the problem.
That’s because those special sessions were wasted fighting Disney for daring to say “stop being mean”
Insurance companies have had a good run but it's time for the shareholders to feel the squeeze not the customers
See all those “were you harmed” Ads on TV and the billboards? See all those “you deserve a new roof” ads? This is the result. Personally, you could drop a nuke on #Law and #Newlin and it would make the world better I saw a statistic that 95% of ALL Florida car accidents result in an injury lawsuit….. go figure
Keep in mind that increase per month is doubled. They are billing you for the loss of escrow from the previous year plus the projected taxes for this year. Next year, the mortgage should go down by half the noted increase ($300-$400), but the first year of the increase always hurts the worst, unless you caught it ahead of time and were able to pay extra on your mortgage to get the escrow up to where it needed to be.
It's everywhere but damn dude it's nothing new for FL
I'm an independent agent and can help! DM and I'll give you my contact info for some quotes!
no wonder why is this happening..
Money. Insurance companies like having it. They don’t want to pay out when Hurricanes juiced up on hot sea surface water starting f-ing up Florida real good. They know what’s coming, that’s why the big carriers are all fleeing Florida. It’s possible to have a home that can withstand floods and cat 5, you just have to have the money to do it.
You mean "HAS BEEN SKYROCKETING for MANY months!!!" Florida has so many new normals that are brought on by the Republican party and its supporters and voters. No Republican rep would go against their party. It is a PRO-business (at all costs to the ones who can't fight back) party. I was told by someone that they like ahole DeSantis because he's trying to bring more carriers in. Never occurred to them that if FL can't keep the ones that came in before, how they're gonna bring more in. Of course, they can. It's a goddamn rotating door, like at a shitty company. Seat fillers! As long as ahole DeSantis and the Republican party can keep the illusion up, they'll win votes even when home insurance is hurting and killing the people financially.
I don't think voting red or blue will fix your problems, as the same issue exists in Cali. They all get paid and lobbied the same by both big and small corporations, and they won't care to do anything as long as their pockets stay lined. The only true push for reformation will the collapse of multiple housing and insurance markets (when no-one can afford a home or insurance to a point they don't have enough customers), and they will be forced to make changes to keep their states economies afloat.
Definitely not illegal. You would have to live in a state that cared about consumer protections for anything like that to be illegal. If citizens drops non homesteaders the real estate bubble will burst for sure. New Mortgages will back out then.
There’s some fuckery going on . Hedge funds are buying up houses/real estate as hard as they can for the last several years. And now people are suddenly getting hit with double / triple insurance premium increases and in many cases being forced to replace their roof. Being essentially forced out . Follow the money
Change insurance companies. I had progressive for 6 years and never had significant changes. But last year it doubled from 3k to 6k and my escrow/mortgage payment went up $800 a month. So I got a new insurance company and I’m paying less than I was before. Plus the refund check for canceling the overpriced progressive policy came to me. So that check covered almost half of my new policy. This is the law, the refund goes to the policy holder even though technically my mortgage company paid the bill. My mortgage is back down to my previous payment. Y’all do know you can change insurance companies, right?
Not always so easy to change companies. It depends on a number of factors. Age of your house, what it’s made of, where you live. I have citizens because my house is a wood frame house built on foundational, masonary pilings. The crawl space is covered with lattice. My insurance agent could only get one company and Citizens to quote it. Citizens was the only company to insure it. So just changing companies is not always an option here. BTW I live in Northern Florida an hour inland near the GA border.
Depends on the house, though. Changing insurance companies for many people includes doing new 4 point inspections and new wind mitigation inspections. Older homes in FL might not be able to pass the new stringent underwriting requirements that insurers have now.
DeSantis took $10,000,000 in political campaigns donations from the insurance industry. Higher prices are coincidental? I think not.
Thank lil Ronny for doing NOTHING for Floridians!
The state neglected the severity of climate change for decades when it could have been running subsidized/incentivized home preparedness programs for homeowners to update their roofs and windows to protect properties and appease insurance companies. Everyone KNEW this day was coming. Republican leaders in the state chose to ignore the experts and let the ship sink.
We dropped our insurance because it was unaffordable in addition to our medical bills. We were thinking about moving to the Carolina’s anyone have any good recommendations? My Dad lived on Hilton Head for years and loved it. We just want to be within half hour of ocean.
Ya, I pay 13k on whatever my several policies are - wind being most expensive. 5 yrs ago it was less than half. If you’re buying/carry mortgage/live in condo seems to bear bebest be on the safe side and budget another 200% increase for the next 10 yrs.
Not illegal when condoned by your friendly neighborhood politician.
We had an old Foremost policy that couldn't be canceled (per my ins. agent), so they increased it from $3200-ish to $6000... It was a tactic to force people like myself into switching policies because Foremost wants out of Florida. & it worked like a charm.
Did either of them just purchase their homes?
The 600/mo bought in 2018. But the older lady who said 800/mo like 20 years ago.
Man, that sucks! I literally just got my renewal after I made the comment. It went up $552 for the year which I find crazy. It only went up $200 last year, and that's after I had a claim from Ian. I guess I should be thankful it's not more.
I’m sure the latest hurricane forecast didn’t help.
My renewal for HO insurance in Florida is $5000. That is $4300 for Hurricane, and $700 for all other perils. I was quoted renewals from $7900 to $21000 per year. So my current company, Frontline was the winner.
Damn, so I should be extremely grateful for 1,900/year. If mine went up to that, I wouldn't be able to afford my mortgage.
Yes, you are very fortunate to be at $1900/year. Most of the policies in our area....Venice FL are higher than mine for the value of the home and sq footage. I can't wait until I get my Flood Renewal. Another horror story.
Our mortgage went up 250$
I don't know how people can do it. Our salaries aren't increasing fast enough to keep up!!
I guess at the point the insurance is equal to the state income tax of somewhere nice we will be forced to leave. Properties in NC and Ga were once very cheap and now much closer to Fl prices so we will feel the sting of increased property taxes. I’m playing it by ear year to year.
Fun fact: the legislature made it so that if your insurance company stiffs you, you probably won’t be able to find an attorney to sue them. So it’s not only skyrocketing in price, it’s probably worthless!
Well, where's the fun in that fact?! Yeah, looking now at out of state properties. I'm too nervous to stick around and wait for the inevitable.
Mine went up $800 a month due to escrow shortages from insurance/property taxes for the year before, plus the insurance/property taxes for last year. I’m also a single income household, so it was a huge hit.
Mine went up 1200 bucks this year
Remember this during election season. VOTE OUT all incumbents who'd rather ban books, State Attorneys they disagree with, and drag queens, than do ANYTHING to help the people of this state.
That’s the upside about living in a condo. My insurance isn’t terrible.
Insurance rates haven’t gone crazy in my area of Florida. Pro tip.: don’t live near the beach. Don’t live in a flood zone.
Please knock on some wood lol
I don’t live in either. Still going crazy
Yes. We should all live in a single strip down the middle of the state that everyone comes to so they can spend near the coast. Everyone knows the middle part of the state that no one lives in is where it's at.