Paying for home owners insurance in Florida

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My subdivision was built 1977-1979. Some houses with wood shingle roofs like mine. I've replaced my roof twice in the 40 years I've owned the house, the house is 44 years old. I have asphalt shingles now. The other houses all have tile roofs. All but one still have their original roofs. The one that doesn't was just sold and the new owner thought the tile was ugly and put an asphalt shingles.

I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment. In 40 years I would hope you've replaced wood shingle roofs, which are not very common anymore in my area because well it's wood and that's not a good roofing material and has about the same level of lifespan as 3 tab. In my county the insurance company I worked for required all wood roofs to have a 2% W&H deductible cuz wood roofs are a bad idea in the end (especially in CA with you know wildfires).

But 3-tab shingle roofs were very common for a long while and are still very common so my point is there's still likely a lot of people who have them as opposed to architectural shingle roofs which are now really what you find a lot (that's what we personally have is architectural ones). But 3-tab does not have as long as a lifespan.

Tile and slate are not what I have been referring to the entire time (I mentioned that in an earlier post).

So I guess I'm not sure what you took from my comment.

 

[tvguy]

I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment. In 40 years I would hope you've replaced wood shingle roofs, which are not very common anymore in my area because well it's wood and that's not a good roofing material and has about the same level of lifespan as 3 tab. In my county the insurance company I worked for required all wood roofs to have a 2% W&H deductible cuz wood roofs are a bad idea in the end (especially in CA with you know wildfires).

But 3-tab shingle roofs were very common for a long while and are still very common so my point is there's still likely a lot of people who have them as opposed to architectural shingle roofs which are now really what you find a lot (that's what we personally have is architectural ones). But 3-tab does not have as long as a lifespan.

Tile and slate are not what I have been referring to the entire time (I mentioned that in an earlier post).

So I guess I'm not sure what you took from my comment.

Almost impossible, if not completely impossible to have a wood shingle roof installed here anymore. Fire code. They experimented with treating the wood with fire retardant but it didn't work very well.

 

[shh]

Granular loss, heat damage, wind damage, curling (for wood roofs), hail damage which weakens shingles even cracking them and many more things can affect your roof. And as they age there's an increased risk of these and the severity of it.

so true - older roofs whose shingles have baked under years of brutal summer heat and/or harsh winter cold can look great, pass inspection and not leak - yet suffer a surprisingly catastrophic failure after just a minor tropical storm or cat 1 hurricane that a newer roof wouldn't. (Don't ask me how I know.)

 

[cvjw]

To give you an idea of how insane the rates are: we live in north central florida (about 2 hours north of Disney) I 75 corridor in a 1196 square foot house, no where near a beach and not in a flood zone. My renewal for this year is 5200.00 Last year it was right under 4200.00. My car insurance 3 cars (with 2 teen drivers (20 year old and 17 year old) is 600 a month). Insurance in Florida is insane. We have about 10 years till we retire and we are considering moving north as Fl has become to expensive to live in.

We are in Georgia, and our car insurance payments were very close to yours when we had 2 teen boys on our policies. Teen boys are insanely expensive to insure. It does get better as they age!

Your house insurance is much more than mine for a larger house, but we also pay state income tax. Much more than your house insurance. I would love to pay $5200 for house insurance and no state income tax. It would save us so much money.

 

[barkley]

To give you an idea of how insane the rates are: we live in north central florida (about 2 hours north of Disney) I 75 corridor in a 1196 square foot house, no where near a beach and not in a flood zone. My renewal for this year is 5200.00 Last year it was right under 4200.00. My car insurance 3 cars (with 2 teen drivers (20 year old and 17 year old) is 600 a month). Insurance in Florida is insane. We have about 10 years till we retire and we are considering moving north as Fl has become to expensive to live in.

these figures are mind blowing to me-i just cannot fathom those costs! all in for life, atv, umbrella, auto (3 cars-highest level coverage in all areas), homeowners (double the square footage plus 10 acres at the highest coverage levels offered, extended structure replacement, contents w/replacement value and housing loss of use) is less than you are paying for auto insurance alone

I would love to pay $5200 for house insurance and no state income tax. It would save us so much money.

i'm paying less than $1000 per year for homeowners for coverage i mentioned above-no state income tax as well. there's a reason most of myself and most of my neighbors moved from out of state as retirees or near the end of their careers.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

In some parts of coastal TX I saw some people's home insurance rates be $30K+ if you had the company insure for wind and hail. In Michigan their auto rates could be $9K-$12K for 6 months liability only (although newer health insurance legislation may have helped lower that overall cost)

 

[skyywalker]

For what it's worth... we're going through the same hikes in Louisiana, though the news media is silent about it, with some people's premiums more than tripling. Also, I'm not required to carry flood but we purchase it anyways. I refuse to purchase it this year as it has gone up 250%.

 

[SL6827]

In some parts of coastal TX I saw some people's home insurance rates be $30K+ if you had the company insure for wind and hail. In Michigan their auto rates could be $9K-$12K for 6 months liability only (although newer health insurance legislation may have helped lower that overall cost)

What's the deal with Michigan?

 

[wdwpluto]

That's because you don't live in Florida. It's absolutely true here - listen to the residents.

100% and there are so few insurance companies that will insure certain homes (I own a 1950s home that’s hard to insure for no valid reason) that you’re at their mercy

 

[barkley]

this thread and a recent binge watch of 'hoarders' got me into a cleaning/purging/organizing crusade that resulted in a call to our insurance company to look at our personal property coverage. looking at replacement costs on appliances and other items had me in sticker shock so i upped the coverage.

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

Farmers insurance said they won’t renew some policies in Florida and now AAA is following suit. They call it a small percentage of customers, but it has to be coastal customers. Those are the highest risk.

 

[HopperFan]

Farmers insurance said they won’t renew some policies in Florida and now AAA is following suit. They call it a small percentage of customers, but it has to be coastal customers. Those are the highest risk.

I have been a very coastal customer for 7 years. My insurance has only gone up maybe $100 in that time. No issues with insurance for us.

There are several issues that are causing companies to leave, hurricanes is just one of them, but not even the major one. There is also the poor handling of claims, which slowed payments and led to lawsuits. It's been claimed that Florida accounts for 75% of all insurance lawsuits in the USA. Another is that parent companies are charging high fees to these insurers in FL which they pass on.

The whole roofing situation has gotten out of control and the explanation is ... " Floridians have seen the cost of homeowners insurance increase while the availability of coverage has decreased. This is due, in part, to the state's history of high levels of litigation and fraudulent roof replacement schemes".

Apparently FL is a haven for roof replacement scams.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Yesterday on The Today Show, there was a story about insurance companies pulling out of Florida. Something like 15 companies writing less and 3 companies pulling out all together. Heard the same is happening in California.