Florida Homeowner's Insurance Crisis

Increase your deductible!

Increasing your deductible can make a huge difference to your homeowner's insurance premium. We have seen premiums halved by taking the maximum deductibles for both wind and other events.

It means that the policy is only good in catastrophic circumstances, but people are using the following reasoning: if a hurricane hits, the damage will be catastrophic anyway.

Some are confiding that in the event of evacuating for a storm, that they will leave all their windows and doors open, so that they can actually cash in on the homeowner's insurance policy!

Change the policy on your goods from Replacement value to Actual Cash Value (ACV)

Citizens calculates the replacement value of your goods by halving the value of your home. So if you have a $600,000 home, they assume you have $300,000 worth of goods inside it. What I did to reduce my premium was to specify I wanted actual cash value rather than replacement value in the event of a loss and subsequent claim. A gamble, but in this Florida insurance monopoly it was one of the ways to get the premium down, in addition to specifying an outrageous deductible on your homeowner's (HO) policy.

Shop around for insurance brokers

You will want to shop around agents. Sometimes the quote that one Citizens agent provides will be different to the quote from another.

Lloyds is a surplus lines carrier not regulated by the state of Florida. The rates they are charging are not regulated. If a surplus lines carrier were to go insolvent then the state would not take over paying any claims. That protection for consumers under the Florida Insurance Guaranty Act does not apply to surplus lines carriers.

Are you over insured?

The insurance company may sometimes overvalue a home which forces up your premium. You may be able to use an appraisal to demonstrate to them the appropriate value and thus reduce your homeowner's quote and thus your insurance premium. Remember that an appraisal will include land value so subtract that out in order to come up with the figure that you are going to use to persuade the insurance company how much your building is worth.

Have An Insurance Inspection Of Your Home

An inspector can certify that your roof is up to code, and can give you a discount for having plywood shutters. Apparently there was very little difference in the the discount you receive for having hurricane shutters versus plywood.