Homeowners/hurricane insurance (Miami, Vero Beach: house insurance, condo, mobile home)

[lindarby]

My new bill just came in and it is 2500.00. I think it is too high. Any recommendations? I currently have Tower Hill.

[SeaLark7]

Depends on the size of your house, value, location (seafront or inland?), etc. We have a 2500 sf house with a pool, 5 miles inland, and are paying about $1900 a year for pretty much full replacement value ($318k) on the house. We have AAA (as in, the Auto Club) house insurance.

[Old Grump]

Interested in this thread as I will be there by year's end. There are probably a lot of threads on this topic, but not many addressing current, up to date costs. The OP says "Homeowners/hurricane". Not sure if it means the total insurance for the home or just the weather portion. IIRC there are also options affecting premiums for flood, wind, debris removal and temporary relocation costs. The year built can also make a difference in some cases. Here in CA we pay $1900 a year just for the earthquake rider. I'm hoping our total insurance bill will be less in FL, especially since we are downsizing, and looking at situation like SeaLark7 describes. I plan to get some sort of rough estimate for wherever I end up purchasing in advance of signing a contract.

[lindarby]

Thanks SeaLark. I will give them a call. My house is a little smaller than yours but I am also 5 miles inland with a pool.

[SeaLark7]

Forgot to mention that our house was built in 2005. Older houses probably cost more as they may not be up to hurricane codes. Old Grump, I think our hurricane insurance is about $700 of the $1900. The total also includes insurance on contents as well as the structure itself. Be sure when you ask for a quote that you get the replacement cost of the house - our original policy only covered up to $200k, even though we had paid $255k for it ! I recently updated it to the $318k for only about $400 more a year, bringing the new total to $1900 (These are all the quotes given to me over the phone; I am hoping when the updated policy arrives there are not any surprises, LOL !).

[Fancy4]

We have USAA (AGI). And our insurance is 1725.00

[Old Grump]

Originally Posted by SeaLark7

Forgot to mention that our house was built in 2005. Older houses probably cost more as they may not be up to hurricane codes. Old Grump, I think our hurricane insurance is about $700 of the $1900. The total also includes insurance on contents as well as the structure itself. Be sure when you ask for a quote that you get the replacement cost of the house - our original policy only covered up to $200k, even though we had paid $255k for it ! I recently updated it to the $318k for only about $400 more a year, bringing the new total to $1900 (These are all the quotes given to me over the phone; I am hoping when the updated policy arrives there are not any surprises, LOL !).

Thanks SaLark7. Will do.

[pslhomie]

I have Tower Hill and my insurance is half that much. I would (if you can) reassess the value of the contents of you house and ask yourself if you could put money in a special account to self insure as much as possible and raise your deductible. Storms do not happen that often and you should check with the City to see if you are in a flood zone. Talk to neighbors to see what happened in the last storm. It sounds like you are potentially wasting money you could be saving.

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by pslhomie

I have Tower Hill and my insurance is half that much. I would (if you can) reassess the value of the contents of you house and ask yourself if you could put money in a special account to self insure as much as possible and raise your deductible. Storms do not happen that often and you should check with the City to see if you are in a flood zone. Talk to neighbors to see what happened in the last storm. It sounds like you are potentially wasting money you could be saving.

But it's not really about neighborhood by neighborhood.

The last hurricane year here was 2004 and while Jeanne made it's landing near PSL, my entire condo building was decimated in Vero Beach. Our roofs were not new Miami Dade standard but they are now. It took a year to get everything rebuilt.

Fourth Hurricane Ravages Florida

Last year a random tornado came through near I-95 and destroyed just ONE house in Village Green (a mobile home neighborhood).

Hard to predict outcomes of future hurricanes.

Comments in this Hurricane Jeanne PSL video:

our house lost a few shingles and some of our soffit during francis, then jeanne hit a few weeks later and we lost our stove vent which tore a giant hole in our roof. then wilma hit several weeks later and we lost half of our roof because it was weak from water damage from the last two storms. our house got really wrecked from the storms but it faired okay in comparison to a lot of folks' homes. some of my friends on the island didn't have a house anymore....or it was full of sand... or they burned down. a few folks died in my neighborhood and we had huge parts of people's roofs in our yard and you couldn't get in or out of the neighborhood for a few weeks and we ran out of food. --_-' we all lost two month of school too, which kinda sucked because we had to make all the days up during the summer. these storms were fairly tame compared to andrew though. andrew was teeeeerrrrible and we happened to be down in miami during it. i felt so badly for people living in homestead
the really bad thing about the storms that hit our town though was the timing and the frequency. 2 cat3 storms and a cat4 storm in the span of 7 weeks. we didn't have time to fix anything before the next couple hit us and conditions of the town just deteriorated with each storm. it was nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4PP0ZQqJZ8

[lindarby]

Thanks everyone. I am calling different companies this week. I will let you know.