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Old 08-13-2019, 09:32 PM
 
Location: OCNJ and or lower Florida keys
814 posts, read 2,033,327 times
Reputation: 842

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on a canal in the florida keys if you have a mortgage you must purchase 3 different policies one for winstorm damage from citizens one for flood from wright national and one for liability and non hurricane losses aka normal homeowners from loyds of london on a 1967 modular home 4o inches off the ground.
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Old 08-14-2019, 05:31 AM
 
30,150 posts, read 20,868,388 times
Reputation: 11802
If it is paid for go bare like i do. I have saved over 70k by going bare the last 15 years.
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Old 08-14-2019, 04:41 PM
 
Location: Ventura County, CA
396 posts, read 416,485 times
Reputation: 818
Enigma homeowners is extortion in Florida these days!

bigh110 wow 3 policies? I can't imagine what that costs! I remember someone my husband worked with said that he paid $800 a month for his house in Clearwater. It was a big house worth a couple of million. I thought maybe he was exaggerating but I guess not!

LKJ1988 going bare? Do you mean bare minimum coverage or bare as in just having no policy?

it's really looking like they are just not going to have coverage at all. Our main concern was a hurricane but with the state of the house, they can't get the wind driven rain coverage.
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Old 08-14-2019, 05:13 PM
 
Location: Tennessee
10,688 posts, read 7,647,255 times
Reputation: 4674
I spent 30 years in the insurance business, personal property-casualty and some life and health. I began as an underwriter and later became a rate-maker and compliance officer for, among other things, homeowners insurance.

My parents lived in Mobile and I watched their insurance begin to skyrocket over 35 years.

Here is the difficulty. ALL insurance companies belong to a reinsurance pool. They use part of their premium income to purchase insurance for themselves, such as after a $20,000,000 loss all further losses would be compensated at a 50-50 rate by the reinsurer--or even 100% by the reinsurer. I currently live in Colorado, but some of my homeowner premium is being used to reinsure companies doing business in Florida. So my rates are slightly higher to help pay for YOUR insurance. It's a good concept. It flattens the cost out to a degree.

But severe weather related incidents are becoming increasingly frequent. When I was making rates we calculated a "catastrophe" load based on using 20 years of data. But even when I left the industry in 2002 actuaries were discussing the need to calculate catastrophes using ten years of data. This would increase rates far more quickly as catastrophes and the cost of those catastrophes go up. Of course, insurance departments of states look to protect consumers from the more egregious practices of insurance companies (and I have been "ordered" to do absolutely illegal rates or forms by senior vice-presidents of companies I worked for) so the state tries (or at least did try) to prevent them from doing those.

The result was, some companies began pulling out areas prone to higher catastrophes. I worked for a small company in the eighties that flat out pulled from South Carolina AND Mississippi over requirements to insure coastal properties that we didn't think we could adequately price (it was beginning even then) , and which were going to cost our small company a fortune to reinsure with other companies.

Flood insurance is primarily underwritten by a single governmental entity, although some private insurance is available for homes of high value. It has a gigantic deductible, and flood damage is rarely minor either.

I wish I had better news. But until climate change is reversed (ha!) it will continue to impact homeowners premiums by skyrocketing costs, deductibles, and shortages of coverage.

And, this is not encouraging either. As an underwriter of personal insurance in several companies (everything from small companies to a huge conglomerate) I dealt with numerous insurance agents, discussing coverages and forms primarily. As a group they are not very knowledgeable about periphery items in policies (like flood exclusions). There are a few who are razor sharp, but not as a general rule. They are geared up to SELL insurance and let the company cross claims bridges.

I would wish you the best of luck in Florida, but I think all the "luck" involved has run its course. You are faced with paying a wad of cash or taking a chance and going bare (where it is possible--not usually with a mortgage). Neither one is appealing.
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Old 08-14-2019, 05:58 PM
 
30,150 posts, read 20,868,388 times
Reputation: 11802
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLonelyGoatherd View Post
Enigma homeowners is extortion in Florida these days!

bigh110 wow 3 policies? I can't imagine what that costs! I remember someone my husband worked with said that he paid $800 a month for his house in Clearwater. It was a big house worth a couple of million. I thought maybe he was exaggerating but I guess not!

LKJ1988 going bare? Do you mean bare minimum coverage or bare as in just having no policy?

it's really looking like they are just not going to have coverage at all. Our main concern was a hurricane but with the state of the house, they can't get the wind driven rain coverage.
No Ins at all, flood or HOI. I am right on the gulf and it cost more to insure in my county than anywhere else.
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Old 08-15-2019, 04:19 AM
 
Location: Ventura County, CA
396 posts, read 416,485 times
Reputation: 818
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden View Post

I would wish you the best of luck in Florida, but I think all the "luck" involved has run its course. You are faced with paying a wad of cash or taking a chance and going bare (where it is possible--not usually with a mortgage). Neither one is appealing.

thank you so much for this valuable info! I agree that it seems luck has run its course.

My inlaws had coverage for so long and then let it lapse. But I wonder now if that coverage would have paid out in case of a hurricane. Maybe not.

I agree that so many in the industry don't know the ins and outs. And oddly enough it can result in missed opportunities to upsell insurance. Unless somehow it's in their best interest not to upsell? I read so many complaints about companies where something wasn't covered and the homeowner had no idea.

Even with other insurance like renter's....years ago our apartment that was in a newly built building flooded. We had a renter's policy for 20k. The most expensive things we had were the tv and our computers. But out of the 20k, only 3k of electronics was covered! The claims agent said that apparently there are limits within the limits. So I could claim 17k of furniture or clothing. But only 3k of electronics. I would have needed a separate policy. Nobody told me that. I would have gladly gotten a separate policy. They could have upsold me and they didn't. I'm an easy sell for insurance.
But anyway, since then, I'm not trusting of insurance companies and I ask a million questions of what's covered and not. And I actually read my policy which most don't.

for my inlaws I think they need to just hope for the best. I would hate to be paying over $300 a month for them for a useless policy IF they could even get anything.

Thank you everyone for all of the valuable info. Saved my husband and me a lot of money!
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Old 08-17-2019, 07:53 AM
 
Location: USA
1,599 posts, read 1,409,678 times
Reputation: 1550
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLonelyGoatherd View Post
Thank you all for your help!

That is a good point about a house being a teardown. Theirs definitely would be. But what about personal belongings? Can you get a policy for just the inside of your house? Kind of like renter's insurance but for a homeowner? Maybe they can just insure their belongings?

It's been lapsed for a couple of years. They said they were getting other insurance but they never did. They get angry at us trying to intervene. But the thing is, if they lose their house, we are the only people who will be able to help them. So we do have a right to intervene in my opinion. We don't have near enough money to replace all of their things and find them a place to live. It would bankrupt us. What do people do with no insurance? I guess FEMA rebuilds the house? It's all very frustrating.
If they have other issues beyond managing their home insurance are they competent enough to be on their own? If, unfortunately, they are loosing it, you could engage an attorney to see if a competency evaluation and ruling by a court is in order. If you take over, then perhaps you could move them out to a retirement home or assisted living center appropriate to their condition. It is good you are trying to help but being so far away more help is needed for all the aspects they may not be dealing with. Good luck.
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Old 08-18-2019, 12:26 PM
 
Location: SW Florida
14,801 posts, read 11,948,149 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SanyBelle View Post
How long has the insurance been lapsed?

I didn't pay my car insurance bill in Nov 2018 because I moved and the post office mail forwarding had already expired and I didn't get the bill, the late notices or the cancellation notices. I pay 98% of my bills online, so I didn't realize I hadn't paid this bill. My car insurance is paid twice a year, in November and May. In February I went to renew my driver's licence and found out that I didn't have any car insurance. I was able to get it reinstated by paying the entire bill from Nov-Feb and by swearing that nothing had happened to the car and I wouldn't be putting in an insurance claim.

I'm don't know if this is similar and could work with your parents? Maybe if the lapse hasn't been too long? Good luck!

Edited to add that it's also difficult to buy insurance during hurricane season.
Unfortunately, insurers are still happy to provide car insurance in Florida, not so much homeowner's insurance, so while it'd be a nice thought that a lapsed homeowner's policy could be reinstated like your car insurance was, I think it'd be a cold day you-know-where before that happened.

It's been a while since we dealt with Citizens, so I can't speak about recent experiences, but we had Citizens on our house in Miami (an older house built in 1958, east of US1 so in Pariahsville in the eyes of the insurance industry). Even though it was rebuilt after Hurricane Andrew to Miami Dade post Andrew building codes, had hurricane shutters, braced trusses, it was still regarded as an old house as far as insurance rates went. Wierd, but we had three different homeowner's policies as our old State Farm homeowner's policy dropped the windstorm coverage, but allowed us to keep the policy to cover fire, theft and the like. So we had the Citizens for the windstorm coverage, State Farm (of Florida), for the homeowner's coverage, and a FEMA flood policy through State Farm for the flood coverage.

Several times over the post-Andrew years I looked around for other insurance coverage on that house, but when I told them where it was located, and the year it was built, I was met at best with polite refusals to even talk to me, and with one insurance rep an outright sneer as he told me "I'd better stick with what I got as I was lucky to even get insurance". So I think we were stuck with Citizens. Maybe they're better these days, but I couldn't say and I'm skeptical in any case.


We also had Citizens for a couple years for our retirement home (built in 2008) in SW Florida, which covered both homeowner's and windstorm insurances for much less money than the windstorm alone had been on the house in Miami. We didn't have any dealings with them other than paying the premiums, but the difference in the cost was due to the age of the house, and the presence of windstorm mitgation items (hip roof, built to Miami-Dade building codes, approved hurricane impact windows) some of which we had also had on the house in Miami but which were ignored by Citizens there.

From what I can see, the attempt on the part of Citizens to get rid of as many policies as possible continues. Over the years Citizens has offered incentives to numerous start-up insurance companies to take over its homeowner's policies in many locations throughout Florida. From what I can see while it was always optional for a homeowner to accept these new policies, they were, let's say, strongly encouraged to do so. We had numerous offers from these takeout companies for insurance to replace our Citizen's policy for our new house, and finally replaced that policy with a Federated National company a couple years after we moved here.

The other attempts on the part of Citizens to get rid of its homeowners' policies-these, IMO, have occurred with old houses, and those in the what I always called the insurance blacklisted areas (such as our house/neighborhood east of US 1 in Miami, east of I-95 in Broward, Palm Beach counties), where coverage is difficult if not impossible to get. Around 2009 or 2010 Citizens began conducting roof inspections in our neighborhood and other areas affected by hurricane Andrew. They sent letters informing homeowners that shingle roofs that had been replaced after Andrew were of an age where they were likely to fail, the inspections were mandatory (with THEIR inspectors), and in the event of a roof failing inspection the policy would not be renewed unless the roof was replaced (replaced, not repaired). And it sure looked as though the inspectors had been instructed to fail as many roofs as possible, there were numerous stories in the news media about people's experiences with this. In our case, we had replaced our roof about six months before the inspection, had the papers and documention ready for our inspector's review, but he refused to look at the papers, took a cursory look at the roof (but didn't even take a ladder up there for a better look), and failed the inspection, reason given was that he was unable to determine the condition of the roof, whether it met code due to lack of access and no paperwork! There was a appeal process, we wen t through that, sent the paperwork and a complaint letter, and passed the inspection ok.

This, at least back in the day, was how old houses (even updated or rebuilt) were treated, and that's what I'd be leery of in trying to get homeowner's insurance now with Citizens. I agree with those who have suggested to the OP to contact various agencies to see what might be available. I recall that a friend of mine who went through the wringer with her homeowner's insurance (one of the takeout policies) at the time it looked like Citizens was doing it's best to extort its policyholders finally got a policy with LLoyds of London, but it also didn't cover windstorm. Checking with them might also be an idea.
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Old 08-18-2019, 03:18 PM
 
Location: USA
1,599 posts, read 1,409,678 times
Reputation: 1550
Quote:
Originally Posted by LKJ1988 View Post
If it is paid for go bare like i do. I have saved over 70k by going bare the last 15 years.
Good for you! Not many folks have homes worth less than 70k
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Old 08-19-2019, 05:30 AM
 
30,150 posts, read 20,868,388 times
Reputation: 11802
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireStation46 View Post
Good for you! Not many folks have homes worth less than 70k
Mine was worth 150k in 05 and down to 20k in 2011. Now back to around 130k. Don't make cents to pay 5k a year to insure a house worth less than 30k back when Ins prices were insane in 2008 thru 2012. I have saved enough to buy all the sub 70k homes in my area i want. Plus a big crash is coming again.
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