Insurance on SFRs skyrocketing in central Florida
I own one SFR just north of Orlando. In Volusia county and a second in Seminole County.
the Volusia insurance doubled rom last year from $950 to $1900. And back in 2017 it was only $440.
The house in Seminole went from $1200 to $1800 between last year and this.
What gives? Thus seems out of control.
Hurricanes and fraud, the more they pay out the more they charge the next time around. Many insurers are dropping people or leaving the state entirely.
Quote from @David B.:
I own one SFR just north of Orlando. In Volusia county and a second in Seminole County.
the Volusia insurance doubled rom last year from $950 to $1900. And back in 2017 it was only $440.
The house in Seminole went from $1200 to $1800 between last year and this.
What gives? Thus seems out of control.
Central Florida and Florida in general over the last 10 years saw a lot of bad actors in the roofing and insurance adjusting space promising homeowners they could get them a free roof if they would assign their benefits to them and then filing roof damage claims after any kind of storm event and if the insurance companies denied the claim then filing lawsuits. Now I'm no fan of insurance companies as I have had them deny my legitimate claims in the past but it was these bad actors taking advantage of certain legal loopholes for their own personal gain that has put many of the insurance companies out of business here in Florida. Now there are only a handful of carriers across the entire state that will write policies and many of them have changed their minimum requirements so that homeowners are having to put on brand new roofs or risk being dropped. The Florida legislature has implemented a new law making it illegal for roofers to do direct to consumer marketing through flyers door knocking and cold calling but it appears it may be a little too late. that coupled with frequent storms which is typical for Florida has made insurance in Florida extremely expensive. I myself have experienced this same issue where my insurance rates have doubled. I always suggest to people to shop their homeowners insurance with a good insurance broker every year. This is no guarantee that you'll get the same Rock bottom rates but you'll at least have them competing for your business which will put you in a better position.
Thanks for the very informative reply! There must be a lot of pressure being put on Florida Politicians by homeowners to fix this problem. I hope they do more than just those restrictions on the marketing by roofers, that you talk about above.
These premium increases are out of control and adding to the rapidly rising cost of living in Florida for homeowners. These increased insurance costs will eventually get passed along to renters as well -and rents in Florida already have enough upward pressure.
Quote from @David B.:
Thanks for the very informative reply! There must be a lot of pressure being put on Florida Politicians by homeowners to fix this problem. I hope they do more than just those restrictions on the marketing by roofers, that you talk about above.
These premium increases are out of control and adding to the rapidly rising cost of living in Florida for homeowners. These increased insurance costs will eventually get passed along to renters as well -and rents in Florida already have enough upward pressure.
Yes the increased cost of insurance is already being passed on to renters. We see it in the current rental rates that are required
Florida is definitely one of the worst hit states for increases in cost of insurance.
The major factors listed above are dead on what is happening and it is being exacerbated by the fact that so many insurance carriers have left the state due to insolvency or too high of loss ratios making it a bad business decision for the insurers to be in the state, and there is only so much that the state lawmakers can do to incentivize insurance carriers to come back to Florida or start writing business there again.
Unfortunately across the US almost every state is going to get hit with rate increases for 2023 in the realm of 10-15%. Some being much higher.
Florida is also hard to follow the shop your rates every year or every other year because there are so few carriers to even shop.
Very good responses above. Interested to see how this plays out
If I remember correctly, Hurricane Ian wiped out all earned premium for the state back to Andrew. And Andrew wiped out all earned premium for the history of time