Florida property insurance rates expected to jump 40% to 50% in June (Tampa: assessor, attorney)

[1insider]

"If you are one of the thousands of Florida homeowners insured by the state-run Citizens Insurance program, you may have received a letter from them recently, or from another insurance company that you’ve probably never heard of. It is all part of a recent effort by Florida Gov. and the Florida Legislature to “shrink” Citizens Insurance and move policyholders to private companies.

However if you threw the letters out, you will automatically be “depopulated” to a company you may know nothing about, even if you haven’t given your approval. It’s called a “Negative Option” plan and, according to a member of the group’s board of directors, it’s intentionally aimed at ousting as many policyholders as possible off Citizens’ roster."

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by 1insider

"If you are one of the thousands of Florida homeowners insured by the state-run Citizens Insurance program, you may have received a letter from them recently, or from another insurance company that you’ve probably never heard of. It is all part of a recent effort by Florida Gov. and the Florida Legislature to “shrink” Citizens Insurance and move policyholders to private companies.

However if you threw the letters out, you will automatically be “depopulated” to a company you may know nothing about, even if you haven’t given your approval. It’s called a “Negative Option” plan and, according to a member of the group’s board of directors, it’s intentionally aimed at ousting as many policyholders as possible off Citizens’ roster."

This "takeout" policy on the part of Citizens to depopulate its policyholders is nothing new, has been going on for at least 15 years. When we lived in Miami- south Miami-Dade county east of US 1, we couldn't get any of those new companies to take us on, ( I didn't want them to, so it was ok) as it seemed we were considered "pariahs" of some sort due to our location. We were grandfathered in with "State Farm of Florida" for homeowner's insurance, which excluded windstorm coverage, which we obtained from Citizens. That, along with the mandatory flood insurance from FEMA ( we had a HELOC on that house, used to build our retirement house in SW Florida), made for very expensive insurance premiums.



We insured our retirement house with Citizens ( including homeowner's and windstorm) for a few years, and got many letters from those takeout companies stating they were assuming our homeowner's policies from Citizens. The instructions in these letters were to notify the insurance carrier ( either by return carrier, or with some an online opt-out option, and this would allegedly keep them from automatically assuming our policy.


But some of those letters arrived well after the deadline dates for those opt-out options, and I would call and complain ( can't remember to whom) and I was assured that despite the wording on the letters, none of those take-out insurers would assume a Citizen policyholder's homeowner's insurance policy without express written permission of the policyholder to do so, and action on the part of the policyholder was required ( as well as premium payment) for the takeout company to assume the policy. Still, I probably wouldn't just toss a letter from one of those companies without following the instructions to notify them about NOT wanting them to assume my policies, though without specifically hearing from the policyholder, they might well not do anything.



We finally did have our homeowner's policy transferred to one of the companies- not sure if we had gotten a letter from them, but we contacted our local insurance agent and made our wishes known that we'd had enough of Citizens, and wanted to switch. She wrote up policy options for three companies they would recommend ( many they did NOT recommend) and we chose one of those. We had them for maybe 6-7 years, till last summer ( just before Ian) this company got out of the property insurance business and transferred our policy to one of its "sister" ( or something) company. As it's turned out, this new company has turned out to be pretty decent, paying our Ian claims timely and not trying to shortchange us ( we just need to provide good documentation, which is a reasonable expectation), and decent coverage.

[Sunshine Rules]

My main concern with self-insured homeowners coverage is not the costs associated with rebuilding or repairs, it has more to do with liability coverage in case someone is injured while on the property. You may have enough money to rebuild your home after a disaster, but can you afford to pay the costs of being sued for liability?

Some insurance companies may allow you to purchase a stand-alone liability coverage policy. Has anyone here done that recently? What are your premiums?

[City Guy997S]

I recently bought a brand new house.........the coverage is less money on a bigger more expensive house but my auto insurance jumped $500 for 6 months because of my new zip code. So I saved 2K on house premiums and had to give back $1000 on auto!

[wondermint2]

Progressive is dropping around 100,000 policies in Florida.

Progressive to exit more property insurance business in Florida

https://www.artemis.bm/news/progress...ss-in-florida/

[wondermint2]

No update on investigation 10 months after adjusters claimed insurers slashed Hurricane Ian payouts

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no...4a4baa1c&ei=51

Insurance adjusters told 8 On Your Side that their reports were being altered and homeowners were paying the price.

The allegations led to two state investigations, but nearly a year later, we’re still waiting for answers.

[wondermint2]

Any one here have State Farm property insurance? If so how would you rate it?

‘I always tell them get better insurance’: Contractor says to avoid State Farm. Here’s why

For full article:

https://www.dailydot.com/news/dont-g...arm-insurance/

While insurance agencies don’t have the best reputation for keeping a claimant’s best interest at heart, one contractor on TikTok said State Farm is “one of the worst.”

“Every single time somebody has State Farm, doesn’t matter if they’re in the direct path of a tornado, they will always argue about what they’re gonna pay for and what they’re not gonna pay,” Collins says. “Every single time.”

[beachmouse]

We had State Farm back in the early 00s and they didn’t balk at paying out for a substantial lightning damage in 2003 but that’s long enough ago to not be relevant now. Dropped them for Allstate at one point for price reasons, and then when Allstate got crazy expensive for us (and when we got a shiny new roof) we dropped them off AAA.

[Travelassie]

I'd probably regard this contractor's statements regarding State Farm with a very large grain of salt, and check with actual State Farm customers about this insurance's history of paying claims. We no longer have homeowner's insurance with State Farm, though we do have it for our car insurance. As I understand it State Farm writes few to no homeowner policies here in Florida, though people who have had this insurance may be grandfathered into the State Farm of Florida (split off from the parent company to lessen the parent company's exposure to hurricane/windstorm claims in Florida).

We had State Farm of Florida ( homeowner's coverage excluding windstorm) coverage on our house in Miami, though we never had a claim, so I can't say personally how good they are at paying out for claims. We had State Farm insurance on our house in Miami when Hurricane Andrew hit there in 1992. Our house was virtually destroyed, and we had to live somewhere else for the year it took to rebuild it. It took a while, but State Farm worked with the contractor we hired, and covered the rebuilding, as well as giving us the maximum coverage for the contents, and covering the rent for our temporary housing.

[gypsychic]

Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules

My main concern with self-insured homeowners coverage is not the costs associated with rebuilding or repairs, it has more to do with liability coverage in case someone is injured while on the property. You may have enough money to rebuild your home after a disaster, but can you afford to pay the costs of being sued for liability?

Some insurance companies may allow you to purchase a stand-alone liability coverage policy. Has anyone here done that recently? What are your premiums?

We did that with our little Sarasota house (now sold). It had become our second home after we moved, and we paid it off and dropped the ridiculous insurance which was over $4,000 per year (with flood). And mind you, we would NOT have seen a dime out of it in a catastrophe, even assuming they paid, because this ONLY covered the amount of our small mortgage. Total ripoff. A sizable liability policy cost us around $600 per year.

We are also doing this in Lakeland, on another home which has become our "second" home property (using for studio and other purposes.) Paid it off and dropped HOI, just got a liability policy for around $500 or so. We have full coverage on our main home; got a pretty good rate for full coverage; around $1,800 per year for 2000 sq ft with detached garage. Built in 1975, however; it is brick over stucco, one story with hip roof and all updated on good high ground (and a fire hydrant in front yard tee hee

Of course, anyone with a mortgage is pretty much required to have full HOI.