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Originally Posted by rebekahb
Ask this question again once their renewals come up. In LA, we had Laura, Delta, Zeta & Ida. All within about a year. Prior to this my homeowners was around $3200 and flood around $900. In 2022, my insurance was around $5500/year. UPC went bankrupt at the end of the year which was after all the other companies had pulled out. Result, force placed with Citizens at around $9k/year. Was able to maneuver to get it around $7500/year. This is NOT including flood which is around $1200 or property taxes. A few companies came in and we are back down to around $5400.
Currently, people are trying to buy homes and the note they can afford. Once insurance gets factored in people are walking away from the deals.
The next issue, is getting insurers to pay. We know people who are fighting insurance and don’t have complete repairs from Ida 8/2021. Attorneys have had to get involved and don’t even get me started on that. We will never file a claim again unless we have significant damage. It isn’t worth it and they nail your ass on the back end.
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Insurance issues are nothing new here. They have been going on since the mid-1990's after Hurricane Andrew. Insurance rates go up a lot after hurricanes. They never go down in a year with no storm. We went about 10 years with no hurricanes where I live and rates went up every year, then they went up a lot after Irma in 2017.
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Originally Posted by David70
I don't believe they are able to have everyone nationwide pay for the FL problems otherwise the companies not in FL (many have moved out) would be significantly cheaper. Companies raise rates when they can, people pay for increases when they don't have a better option.
For those not saying its only a FL problem and point out CA, there are huge areas of the country that don't have anything close to what the worst states deal with.
With the FEMA budget (Federal program) at $20 billion and likely to get huge extra funding, states that continue to use the bulk of it should be paying the bulk of it. If states regularly need federal money people outside the state should have a say in what is going on. I'm fine with you building a house on the beach but don't want to fund replacement it if it continues to get knocked down.
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With respect to your last sentence, I conceptually agree and think that it applies to all government programs, as well as insurance. Those with the greatest risk should pay more. I don't want to pay high insurance rates for the risk to my house in my state and also pay for disasters incurred by uninsured/underinsured in my state and elsewhere. But that's the way it works out right now. I have never received any money from FEMA for disasters in FL or anywhere else but surely paid some of the funds being distributed. I think people living in areas prone to disasters, especially on the coast or otherwise in flood zones, need to purchase homeowners insurance and flood insurance and flood insurance coverage needs to be better than it is and priced accordingly. FEMA money should be for exceptional losses for insured people and losses in places where they are truly not anticipated (e.g., floods in places where FEMA said there is no need for flood insurance). It should not be a replacement for insurance.
There is an issue with property insurance in FL with respect to risk. The state of FL is very large and risk is not the same everywhere. The risk of significant hurricane damage or flooding where I live is low relative to other parts of the state, but those risks increase exponentially as you get close to the coast. The insurance rates are higher near the coast (and generally need to be obtained through Citizens as insurer of last resort), but IMO they do not adequately reflect the exponential risk of loss from living on the coast where property values are also much higher. Additionally, we (in FL) are all on the hook for an assessment if Citizens needs more money to pay claims. So we are effectively reinsuring the risk of losses to houses on the coast.
As I stated above, I am ok with what I pay. It will go up next year. It isn't going to be fixed by just complaining about it. There needs to be some reform to reduce fraudulent claims and more fairly distribute the cost of risk. I suspect the same is true in other places and it is spreading as insurers will use any reason to raise rates wherever they can.