Home insurance costs around Tampa Bay? (St. Petersburg, Lakeland: real estate market, mortgage, lender)

[things and stuff]

I'm curious, what are the rough estimated costs of home insurance in Tampa Bay. I know there's a lot of variables out there, but share me your experiences.

For example, I think our price range would be around $225k and but the areas could range from the Westlake/Citrus park area to the Safety Harbor area to all the way out in Lutz or even Bradenton.

Here, in Baton Rouge we also have hurricanes but we're off the coast a bit and our insurance is around $1900/yr for a $225k home with a pool, not in a flood zone. ($1000 deductible/1% hurricane deductible.)

[mph101]

Too many variables. Age & construction of house will have a lot to do with it. Older housing stock is going to be higher. Almost no one (private) will insure a older home. Very much cherry picked who gets insured by a private carrier. Places like St. Petersburg and Tampa are littered with very old housing stock and no one wants to cover it period. Citizens.

Of course rather flood insurance is needed or not. If you are in a flood zone due to inland flooding, a flood plain/cypress head around Lutz you will likely see more localized flooding due to heavy typical rains than a storm surge from the rare hurricane. Closer to the coast you will have higher rates. Check out the wind mitigation page on Citizens website.

You are likely aware of the sinkhole problem and those rates are going to be sky high along with wind coverage in addition to your typical home owners coverage. The sinkhole rates would be very important to know inland and north. Pasco northern Hillsborough could make a good deal on a nice upland home out of flooding or extreme wind damage policy sour quickly.
This could also include inland Manatee county, and some of Palm Harbor or Tarpon Springs, & coastal zones like Seminole. While St. Petersburg or west Bradenton will see increases likely your lender wouldn't require you to have that policy in place. That same lender may demand you cover a home in Brooksville with sinkhole coverage.

In Florida every named tropical cyclone is covered by wind policy. If a thunderstorm or tornado hits your house that is a different coverage unless its in a named tropical system.

What you illustrate for your home in Baton Rouge will likely be higher in coastal counties here even if you take a 5 or 10% wind deductible and self insure that risk per named storm. Again do some looking for home and check out that very important Citizens insurance wind migitation web page. You will find on that page that homes in Pinellas must be able to withstand wind speeds greater than most of Tampa outside of south Tampa. This is for new code homes but it deals with replacement of a home as well.
If you get a good deal on a house in the awful real estate market for $150,000 however to rebuild that home to code would cost $325,000 that is what you have to carry with a mortgage.

Most people are thinking why do I have to have coverage on a house for $245,000 I only have a mortgage on for 75 grand and bought for 105K?? And they didn't look into wind, flood, or rates before hand. Do not leave it to the real estate agent, do the foot work yourself. The agent will tell you the sun is neon green on Christmas if you want him to tell you that. You should check this out in advance. You should see who is writing policies and not take any ones word that you can easily get coverage and there are plenty of choices. A house built in 2005 with a hip roof might have options a house down the street built in 1989 with a Gable roof will never ever get.

You will also see that the wind coverage from tropical storms while worse in coastal counties is a major problem in most of west central to all of the southern portion of the state and the panhandle. The best rates on wind coverage in Florida would be north central (coastal Pasco north on the Gulf) northern, and northeastern coast from the Space Coast north to the state line.
We could go back to Inland just south of Lakeland in Polk County 7 years ago this night and the 3rd Hurricane in 6 weeks plowed through the same area (Charley,Francis, & Jeanne) while coastal Manatee and Pinellas saw nothing in the way of major damage. The insurance companies know this as well.

I realize Louisana people are aware of what is going on with wind rates on home owners tool


Here is the wind debris Map link:

http://www.inthpa.com/ascemap_05-24-07.pdf

[newyorker24]

Depends whether or not you get sink hole insurance. That alone adds $1500 to my premium, and sink hole rates are supposed to be going up soon.