Florida Home Owner's Insurance - Who do you have?

[mrbones]

My insurance is going up 60% this year for my house for no apparent reason. That's a 60% hike for the exact same coverage as last year. I've never had a claim. St. Johns Insurance is trying to screw me.

I need to find a new company for insurance. Any recommendations?

[dt]

It seems like for a long time now, it’s not a matter of what the insurance costs, but whether there is any to buy. I’ve been in the same house for twenty-three years. It’s nowhere near a flood zone (not that anyone covers that) and far enough inland that the knees would be taken out of a CAT5 well before the storm showed up … and it’s a block frame with a hurricane roof. Yet I’ve had to change carriers about seven or eight times. Not because we found better rates. Rather, we keep getting cancelled. The last one that cancelled was The Hartford, which I had for both home and biz. Why, I understand, is that all the insurers want out of Florida homeowner’s coverage, while keeping other forms of less risky coverage here in Florida. Being semi-regulated, I guess the state lets them pull out in blocks, rather than in one fell swoop. That was the Hartford response that I was in the block pulled, that is, according to the agent. Those that can’t find another carried default into Citizens, which is the State supported insurer of last resort.

Anyway, the current situation for me is Fireman’s Fund for home (replacement and contents) and autos and Banker’s Insurance for business property. Fireman’s required the personal autos and an existing umbrella. The Hartford wrote me a letter like days within terminating coverage offering me a discounted premium on the umbrella; the nerve.

The best thing to do is get a good agent and make them do the work. We’ve used Brown & Brown for home (no problems there) and I used them temporarily for business, but they sucked at the later so I now use an outfit called Mainsail Insurance Solutions. Mainsail is young and aggressive; Brown & Brown seems like an institution but, again, no problemos with personal insurance products.

One last thing, there’s a new carrier based in Clearwater called Homeowners Choice Insurance. They are building their insured base principally by purchasing blocks of properties from Citizens. I don’t know if they’re taking on other stuff yet, but that was the plan. Point is, get the agent to check into HCI because I’m thinking that we all might get a little better attention, if not price, from a company whose here in our back yard and plans to help take on this huge insurance problem facing this state.

[Capri142]

My insurance is going up 60% this year for my house for no apparent reason. That's a 60% hike for the exact same coverage as last year. I've never had a claim. St. Johns Insurance is trying to screw me.

I need to find a new company for insurance. Any recommendations?

   I got dropped by Hartford a couple of years ago after almost 20 years of premiums with 0 claims.....I signed up with a group called Peoples Trust out of Boca Raton 561-988-9170 at a considerably lower cost than Hartford was for the same coverage. You might want to give them a call

[mrbones]

Thanks for all the info. I have since found out I posted this that the rate increase is due to a sink hole that was reported .3 miles from my house. I checked the state's database on sinkhole activity and the only one I found that close was from 10 years ago.

My agent checked within her network and could only find one company that would insure my house at a higher rate. It's just ridiculous.

[dt]

Bummer. Like I said, I think that they just look for excuses to drop insureds or, in this instance, jack rates off the scale.