I live on a hilltop. It's at least 50' above the downtown city street levels and they want to force flood insurance on me... There is no way this house is ever getting flooded.
Insurance fraud from roofers is causing a lot of issues. “According to Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications at the Insurance Information Institute, “Florida property insurers are projected to post a cumulative underwriting loss of $1.7 billion for 2021” due to these runaway litigation costs. It’s no wonder that so many companies are going insolvent or leaving the state before they reach that point.” Is the Florida Homeowners Insurance Market on the Brink of Collapse? | Bankrate
Yes, that has been the main problem here in recent years. IMO rates with insurers trying to enter the market have been artificially low for some time, and a lot of people are finally seeing rates more aligned with the actual "costs of doing business" involved. That's added some volatility.
Need to outlaw assignable benefits. Some insurance companies are writing it into their policies. Seems like a simple solution. What am I missing?
Is your property in a FEMA flood zone? I can't understand why they can "force" you to get flood insurance if not.
I know that insurance companies started getting a bit more defensive in their investment strategies some time ago. Any insider insight into general strategy would be much appreciated. To me, the name of the game right now is capital preservation. But if I could squeeze another point or two without a lot of risk I would love it.
I don't know about that specifically. I do know that the FEMA flood insurance is highly subsidized, below market value, and we buy it every year even though we are not compelled to. Along with my hurricane shutters I have not had to use yet, best waste of money I've ever done. I also know that the flood zone maps are not necessarily reliable anymore due to change conditions and no one should presume they are completely safe just because they're not in a flood zone. At least based on my assessment, we buy flood insurance every year, although I'm pretty high up and in much better shape than most people who don't live inland
The flood zone maps in FL were redone within the past 5 years so they should be somewhat recent. In 2004 we had 3 houses in our neighborhood flood that weren't in the 100 year floodplain, but were when the maps were re-drawn a couple of years later, they were included. Of course just being outside a flood map doesn't mean you won't get flooded if there is some freak event that occurs near you.
Not a resident of Florida but it seems that legislature had to deal with more important issues than insurance like dissolving Disney's Reedy Creek Special District, establishing the DeSantis special election police or the "Don't say gay" bill.
True enough. It's easy to criticize the legislature and the governor for that choice of priorities. But they have been rewarded politically. They correctly perceived the schedule of priorities of the voters that matter to them. You don't get cameos on Fox News and other national media outlets you will need for higher office by successfully navigating an appropriate technocratic solution to property insurance costs.
I don't know the numbers, but I seem to recall Florida being particularly litigious in this regard. Naturally, we are geographically vulnerable, however, while I don't know the other states' laws, some in Florida blame the one-sided fee statute; Plaintiffs' attorneys do not really have much downside to pursuing claims even if the carriers have good coverage arguments. We also have pretty aggressive bad faith statutes. Moreover, what I see, for example, is that most homeowners don't have enough cash on hand to replace their roofs when that is needed, so they just wait for a hurricane and make a claim at that time. If a hurricane doesn't hit, there are PAs and roofing companies that will drive around to peoples' homes, inspect their roof, find some issues and then work to identify a fairly recent date where there was a windstorm or hail storm in the area. I'm almost to the point where I think routine roof replacements ought to be escrowed into mortgage payments. None of this means that most claims are illegitimate. We have had a lot of hurricanes in Florida in recent years after a relative drought, and I've certainly seen cases where homeowners' got low-balled and had no choice but to get an attorney.
A far less significant issue, I acknowledge, but the other thing that would often happen with an impending windstorm is that homeowners would cut down otherwise protected trees that they wanted to get rid of to expand or knock down and rebuild larger, taking advantage of exceptions to the code which allowed emergency good faith removal out of fear of an impending windstorm. Probably won't happen anymore as the state has preempted local tree codes
Interesting. I am not anti-tree by any means, but most wind damage isn't caused by the wind itself but rather by debris - largely in the form of trees and big limbs. The number of pine trees everywhere after Ivan and Michael were mind-boggling. Unless a tree is really, super duper special, I am not going to fault a homeowner for wanting to get it out of the way. If a tree is special enough to be protected, then maybe the owners should be reimbursed for their deductible when the tree comes through the roof/house.
I haven't given any thought to the insurance issues. But I am extremely familiar with the issues of windstorms and live oaks on your property (I have five fully mature grand oaks). Obviously a diseased limb can cause problems. But in general, they are a tremendous source of protection. They bend quite a bit and people get very scared looking at them, thinking they're going to break. But a healthy Live Oak protects the property, it doesn't threaten it. Study after study has shown that they deflect/absorb the wind and protect nearby homes from damage they would otherwise suffer. But still people use an impending windstorm and what I would contend are usually feigned fear in order to get rid of mature live oaks that limit their ability to get everything they want from their lot economically
