Posted on 02/03/2006 7:30:39 AM PST by doc30
I don't think they should.
I like that. 8^)
we never did
I live in NW Florida and have Allstate Insurance. I have never had a claim with them. I received notice that they will not be renewing my policy when it expires at the end of March.
Sure. buried in the small print there is a hurricane surcharge of 5% of the home's insured value, over the standard decutable chosen.
No one is writing but Citizens. Houses that are worth only about 140000 are paying 2 to 3 thousand in premiums. This is not a high class area. Much of it is poor families and seniors on fixed incomes. They are just going without coverage. Almost 1/4 of people here just have no coverage at all. I can't think of what will happen to the area if a hurricane hits.
The sinkhole claims are like winning lotto. Citizens just pays anything to anyone. I know people to walk away with more than the value of their house because supposedly there is a small sinkhole under their driveway. People HOPE they have a sinkhole. We have big lawyer billboards down here advertising for people who have sinkholes. Its a business.
When my house burnt down ten years ago I can't tell you what I went through to get paid. The sinkhole thing is a racket.
When was the last time you saw a home on the beach listed for just $1,000,000? For many residents with homes on the water, Citizen's is the only carrier to offer wind insurance. They were our carrier wen we lived on the water and our rates went up far more than what you are experiencing. We sold our home and moved inland. Now Allstate and State Farm fight over our business.
I think you'll find that more and more residents on or near marine water, who have expensive homes, are self insuring because of massive rate increases. If Citizens stops insuring homes over $1,000,000 there will be no carrier for waterfront property and you can bet that the government will be forced to get involved, which can only mean bad things for taxpayers when the next CAT 3+ hits a populated area.
I have heard that there is a Major Housing Price Bubble that is about to burst and Florida was going to be one of the first states that it does.
If you are wise, sell sooner than later, after the stampede starts your home value will plummet !!!
I think it would just be easier to say homeowners don't have to have insurance if they have a mortgage.
Many people came to FL to retire to their dream home. This is not about hurricanes, this is about the MISMANAGMENT by the regulators who have left FL with a single payer system.
Perhaps what they should do is just make citizens the only insurance by law and spread the risk across all of the state.
Citizens is the insurance of last resort because there are no other companies. When a home HAS to be insured you HAVE to use citizens and citizens HAS to accept you.
The irony is that homes which were well build and took a direct hit, survived well. The cookie cutter development homeowner association homes are the ones that are gone.
One way to bring DOWN rates is to make the homes more survivable. More concrete less wood.
We need to focus on PREVENTION not Reconconstruction.
I think this IS about clearing out the homeowners.
FL has a homestead tax increase cap. every time a home is sold the tax level "reboots" to the new sales price.
Thus the retired homeower may have only paid 500.00 but the new homowner may now have to pay 3000.00 based on the sale price.
The problem is that insurance companies cherry pick their clients leaving Citizens Insurance all the "undesirable" clients. IOW all the risk is dumped on the last resort pool.
This is a regulation and market issue. If there is no insurance then you have to build you home to take a cat. 5.
I think there should be some kind of "retrofit" market.
There has to be a way to retrofit older homes so they are more storm proof and don't look like a bunker.
So your suggesting that insurance companies should be forced to insure property that is high risk which means that their other customers will likely have to pay higher premiums to subsidize the cost of insuring high risk properties?
The problem is that we keep having the government subsidize insurance for homes in high risk areas such as flood plains instead of having the full costs of those risks fall on the homeowners. Or instead of the government directly subsidizing the insurance, they require the private companies to cover high risk property at rates lower than the risk justifies, which causes other homeowners to have to subsidize the high risk properties through their premiums.
It's not that there are no companies willing to insure high risk endeavors. It's that companies are unwilling to insure them under the conditions that the government is forcing on them or at the rates the consumers are willing to pay.
I can't vouch for any 5% surcharge at any point in the claims payment process.
Its right in my policy, as it is in countless others.
I don't know the structure of your job, so I can't comment.
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