I am as well. My rates over the last few years, zero claims: $2500, $3700, $6700 and for this year they wanted $13,700 (IIRC). That's where I drew the line. As of 9/1/24, I'm self-insured.
I paid cash for my home. It is nice not having a mortgage. I put 300 a month in an account for home repairs.
It is pretty ridiculous… we got kicked off citizens because they said cheaper insurance is now available in my area, so can’t renew. So we shopped around…. While the rates are not terrible, they are all saying we also need a 4 points inspection (no more than 6 months old) and most say we have to replace our water heater (which is working fine, and in the garage, on a concrete floor, so even if it did leak, it’s not damaging anything)….
It’s so risky to do that… I mean, house burns down or the roof blows off in a tornado, and it’s a total loss to you. Sucks. My house is paid off, too, but I can’t risk it.
My former next door neighbor said his neice in Boone, NC, had a neighbor's house land on her house. Neighbor was crushed to death. His nIece and her husband/family? made it out of their house after 7 hours and had to climb to 4000 feet to escape the floodwaters.
You may be able to insure property for "All Other Perils" (AOP) and exclude Wind. In Florida, wind will be 60-70% of the premium. I wrote a policy for a Commercial client and he took a 20% Wind deductible (value about $1.2M); so, he's risking 1/4 million but saved about $12,000 on the total premium. He can absorb a claim once every 15-18 years if he's smart (like danmann65 above) and invests the saved premium.
We have had 2 cat 4's and a 5 go right over us. Lost some 20 year old shingles with Ian. Never flooded, rated windows and shutters. Fire and tornado are only real risks left
Tornado went by my house 3 years ago. Ripped the electric meter from my house. I paid to remount the meter but honestly it felt like it was on the electric company. One year later they buried the lines. I think we also may have a smart grid. I do know power hasn’t been off since they buried the lines.
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think about the economic activity this will generate. are building material prices about to ramp up again? I wonder how much recovery $$ has been spent post Ian
Just got power restored at my gf's house. There's an absolute army of lineman and tree services in town, and they are doing work. It's amazing how much they've cleaned up so far.
Wife has a good friend in Hendersonville, 30 min outside of Asheville. No real home damage, but no power, no cell, etc. That area is certainly not used to this kind of damage and no experience with hurricanes. Will be a long recovery I think. Luckily for the friends they were able to bail out to their second home on Amelia Island.
it's a machine waiting to descend and cash as much of the fema cash that they can. good hard working people making bank. know someone who runs some of these storm chasing crews. they need disaster to hit for them to cash in. but they do show up and they do a good job. and it is well organized from what I saw post Ian
I'm very thankful for it, although there are definitely some tree services crews out here (everywhere, everytime, probably) that are giving out some ridiculous quotes. Vulture-like.
I know of someone personally that used some unscrupulous tactics to make windfall profits a few years back. Used the money to reinvest in heavy equipment and now makes a killing cutting trees. Dangerous work and not for me. Dude works hard but I'm not crazy about the fema hawks although they are somewhat of a necessity.
