Posted by Dan Auito on March 09, 2006 at 20:42:08:
Looks like the FJUA Florida Joint Underwriting Association/pool is going to have to step up to the plate for the foreseeable future.
Insurance in Florida - Posted by Glen
Posted by Glen on March 09, 2006 at 08:39:04:
Any ideas for dealing with the much, much higher costs of insurance in Florida?
For example, a house I own in Florida had an insurance bill last year of $1,800. The insurance anniversary is April. The new policy will be $3,600. There have been no claims and my credit is excellent.
I am shopping around now, but finding many companies are not writing new policies or are leaving the state. Other companies also have much higher rates. The Florida legislature is now in session addressing this issue, but I don’t have a lot of hope for a positive outcome.
I currently think that there is no immediate relief coming in Florida for insurance costs…only going higher.
Anyone have a creative solution without lowering coverage?
Anyone care to predict how insurance will effect sales prices, rents and profitability for the investor in Florida?
Thanks.
Read This. - Posted by Equity Hunter
Posted by Equity Hunter on March 10, 2006 at 07:00:31:
Hurricane Losses Force Florida Insurer to Pull Back
(March 9, 2006) – One of Florida?s largest insurers of houses and condominiums will stop writing insurance policies in June, making it harder and more expensive to get home owners insurance in the hurricane-beleaguered state.
Tampa-based Poe Financial Group, the second-largest home insurer in South Florida, took a $2 billion hit from 125,000 claims in the very active 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. As a result, its subsidiary Southern Family Insurance Co. will stop issuing policies and it won?t renew existing ones.
Atlantic Preferred Insurance Co. and Florida Preferred Insurance Cos., also Poe subsidiaries, will stop issuing new home or condo policies but will continue to renew existing customers.
All three companies will continue to pay existing claims.
Poe has about 316,000 policies among its three subsidiaries. Southern Family will cut 43,000 customers. Poe intends to seek more money from investors and continue to be an active insurer in Florida, says its senior vice president David Gough.
In all, residential property insurers have been hit by losses of more than $24 billion from eight hurricanes that affected Florida in the last two years.
“This is not a rosy scenario at all,” says Brian Samberg, president of Southeast Insurance Agency in Boca Raton. “It’s going to be very difficult for the consumer. Poe had extremely competitive prices. By withdrawing from the market, consumers are definitely going to see their rates moving upward. There are just so few companies offering policies at the moment.”
Source: Associated Press, Brian Skoloff (03/08/2006)
Re: Insurance in Florida - Posted by Pat
Posted by Pat on March 09, 2006 at 11:00:41:
Go to www.iasfinancial.com. They are in FLA and work with an insurance clearinghouse. I believe it’s Younger Ins.
Re: Insurance in Florida - Posted by dealmaker
Posted by dealmaker on March 09, 2006 at 09:03:10:
It sounds like TX and FL have more in common than a couple of moron brothers for governors! Our insurance rates did a similar thing a few years ago, the usual culprits cited by insurance companies; mold, attorneys etc. All of which are BS!
Our rates DOUBLED due to MOLD. Once they started issuing policies WITHOUT MOLD coverage they came back down to pretty close to what they had been (although I can’t do a direct comparison as I moved to a larger house in a samller community in the interim). Lo and behold when they started to offer MOLD COVERAGE as a separate rider instead of including it in the policy my annual premium for mold was going to be $99/YEAR, not the $1100/year when the rates doubled.
Take a hard look at your policy, are you paying for coverage on things that you should be SELF INSURING. We have had THREE PERCENT DEDUCTIBLE for several years, no GLASS COVERAGE (maybe not a good idea in a hurrican zone) and we fight hard to make sure that they’re not overinsuring our place.
dealmaker