[imagardener]

Originally Posted by Lilybeans

No one is required to ever have insurance by law. When you get a mortgage you agree contractually with the mortgage company to keep you home insured to protect their security. If you have no mortgage you can get insurance in whatever amount you want. The insurance company cannot tell you waht to get. They can tell you what they will sell you, but you can shop somewhere else.

Yes you can choose how much insurance to buy but the insurer will tell you how much claim they will cover. Example: you get $100,000 insurance policy on $300,000 house. If you have a $100,000 claim the insurer will only pay 33% ($33,333) of it because you only insured 33% of your house value. Disclaimer: I am not in the insurance business but I was given this information years ago.

The insurance co. always wins

[DanBev]

Originally Posted by imagardener

Yes you can choose how much insurance to buy but the insurer will tell you how much claim they will cover. Example: you get $100,000 insurance policy on $300,000 house. If you have a $100,000 claim the insurer will only pay 33% ($33,333) of it because you only insured 33% of your house value. Disclaimer: I am not in the insurance business but I was given this information years ago.

The insurance co. always wins

At one point I asked insurer to insure this home for so many dollars,not what market might dictate,they wanted above what replacement would cost.The slab,well,septic and landscape are still there??Would not insure at what I wanted.Why can't a person buy X dollars of insurance???

[cats_pawn]

My neighbor had/has a $12K deductable on his property, but the home is valued at 1/2 a million, so his policy isn't cheap.

For wind insurance, it's usually 2% of the coverage amount for your deductable.(i.e. if you have $200,000.00 worth of coverage, your deductable is 2% or $4000.00)

I know my agent said I could go to 5% (as the deductable for my wind policy) but that's too high for me. (most damages I have incurred from Wilma, Andrew, etc, were $12K-$19K, so 5% of my policy would be about a $10K deductable, which means I'd be paying a ton of money for insurance each year and with a $10K deductable, I'd be getting nothing repaired when I was hit by a hurricane.
[my house was built in 1945 so it's much older than yours, which might mean your home should stand up to a storm?]
I say should because I was in Kendall when Andrew hit and saw all those nice new homes built by Len_____ & Ar______ get blown to the ground.

Recent hurricanes seem to have some tornado action.

The other thing I wanted to say was this: all sorts of seemingly "dumb" thing get damaged in hurricanes which most people think they can repair themselves. ( fences, screened decks, etc are a few that come to mind)
BUT code enforcement has gotten quite strict. And even if no one reports you are doing work on your home, if you do the work yourself, and do get hit, the insurance company now have access to property records and also permit information.
They can, decide not to cover claims on your property if a permit wasn't pulled for something that requires one. (and almost everything requires one these days)
This won't affect you if you choose not to have insurance though.
[code enforcement still lurks out there]

If you don't have any huge attachment to belongings, and can save to replace appliances that get wet/damaged when the freak event hits,
you might be able to avoid getting insurance.
I'd ask neighbors (if you can) what type of damage they sustained during recent storms. hope this helped some.

Someone posted you can buy whatever amount of coverage you want, but you might have to go to numerous companies to get it.
I don't know if that's true , but I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience on that topic, as in your home is paid in full, no mortgage and you purchased insurance from some company in Miami for less than home is valued at.

Originally Posted by bale002

The house I am considering was built in 1984 I believe. It is in relatively good shape. The roof was damaged by Wilma. The new roof is up to code and passed inspection with praise. The rest of the house, which does not have hurricane shutters or impact glass or hurricane doors, was not damaged by Wilma.

I have the discipline to save, certainly not replacement value in the short term, but possibly the cost of a new roof.

Unless we are talking category 4 or 5, it is hard to imagine that a hurricane could actually destroy an entire CBS house, though a tornado certainly.

Alternatively, I could probably handle a high deductible. How high do deductibles usually go on wind coverage?

[cats_pawn]

I'm not sure that in Florida now, with a mortgage you CAN choose to buy $100,000.00 worth of coverage , if you're property would cost $300,000.00 to rebuild. (this is assuming you have a mortgage)
All insurance companies I have spoken to in Fl, refuse to sell you a smaller amount, claiming they don't want to get stuck being sued, when your home is completely destroyed and you only insured it for 1/3 of it's value.
I think that's a lame excuse because contractually, you agree not to sue them when you purchase/sign your insurance but people can sue anyone for any reason so maybe that's really the reason.

You used to be able to buy less coverage, but in recent years I have not found anyone who will sell me insurance for say $150,000.00 worth of coverage when the property is worth more.
My reasoning is, I want insurance but the likelyhood that a storm will do $250K worth of damage is unlikely.
But I have not found any insurance company that will insure ther propery for a lesser amount than replacement value.

[AliceT]

Originally Posted by cats_pawn

ANyone without a mortgage, please post your experience with buying insurance ?

I have no mortgage on the horse farm in FL. I also have no insurance on it. I can't afford it. My renters are aware and they know I can't afford to rebuild in the event anything happens to the place. It's a crap shoot and one that is putting grey hairs on my head every day.