Wayne WashingtonPalm Beach Post
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis brought an insurance consumer fair to West Palm Beach on Tuesday, offering area residents an opportunity to ask questions about how to reduce their rates and make claims.
"It's important sometimes to take government to the people," said Patronis, whose office is responsible for the licensing and oversight of agents and agencies, in addition to accounting and auditing functions.
Insurance, particularly property insurance, has emerged as a critical topic in the Sunshine State in recent years.
Florida is the most expensive state in the nation to insure a home, according to a recent report from Insurify, a Massachusetts-based insurance comparison website.
In 2023, Florida homeowners paid an average of $10,996 to insure their homes, and Insurify predicted a 7% increase this year to $11,579. For homeowners whose mortgage is escrowed to include property taxes and insurance, that would be roughly $1,000 per month on top of the loan's principal and interest.
Those giant costs are for the fortunate who haven't been dropped from coverage altogether as insurance companies try to limit their exposure to claims tied to the tropical storms and hurricanes that frequently menace the state.
Hurricane season: NOAA makes highest storm forecast on record. What are chances SoFla impacted?
Florida's Legislature has held special sessions three times in the past three years to help address insurance industry concerns. Homeowners, however, remain intensely frustrated by an industry they are usually required by lenders to patronize where agencies eagerly accept ever more expensive premiums while slow-rolling the payment of claims or balking on them altogether.
And then there is the labyrinthine process of reaching someone to explain a drop in coverage or what it would take to get coverage restored.
70-year-old West Palm Beach woman hasn't slept since policy was canceled
Mary Rolle, a 70-year-old West Palm Beach resident, got more familiar with that process than she wanted to recently when, after she called her property insurance company, she learned the policy that covered the house where she lives was canceled.
Rolle said she was made to understand there was a problem with the roof, but she did not have clarity on how to address the concern.
The lack of property insurance as hurricane season draws near was deeply troubling, Rolle said.
"I was about to go crazy," she said, "Haven't slept."
Hurricane Season 2024: What you should do to protect your home during a hurricane
Rolle was able to get help at Tuesday's insurance consumer fair, which was held at the Hilton Palm Beach Airport Hotel.
"Nobody explained it specifically until I came here," Rolle said. "This really helped me."
Rolle said she has learned that the problem at her home is what's referred to as the secondary roof, the water-resistant roof underlayment that is supposed to provide additional protection against water damage.
"I'm going to go back and talk to my roofer," Rolle said.
The insurance fair brought to town a host of state officials who sat or stood at tables labeled so residents could know where to get specific questions addressed.
Grants offered for hurricane hardening
Tim O'Neil answered questions at the table of the My Safe Florida Homes Program, which offers grants to homeowners who pay for hurricane "hardening" improvements like a new roof, new clips to hold a roof in place and impact doors and windows.
The grants would defray as much as $10,000 of those hardening costs.
In Florida, a new roof can cost anywhere from $5,000 to more than $30,000, depending on the size of the home and the type of roofing material needed. Architectural Digest reported that Florida homeowners who get impact windows this year will pay an average of $5,332 for them.
O'Neil, the public information officer for the My Safe Florida Homes Program, said the benefit of hurricane hardening isn't just the potential of a $10,000 grant. The anti-storm improvements reduce property insurance costs for homeowners.
Anywhere from 10% to 40% of a homeowner's total premium is tied to the potential for wind damage, O'Neil said.
"Our goal is to have everybody get their house up to (current) code," he said.
Opinion: It shouldn't take 2024 storm season to prompt Florida insurers to address climate change
Tighter building codes have limited the risks for Florida homeowners and kept insurance rates from going even higher, O'Neil noted.
The owner of a house built before 2002 could see as much as $28,000 damage from a typical storm, O'Neil said, but the owner of a house built after 2002 might see about $4,000 in damage.
In addition to stronger building codes, Tasha Carter, the state's insurance consumer advocate, said Florida has taken various actions to combat insurance fraud, help consumers with a claim, expand insurance regularatory authority and help insurance companies with re-insurance, which insurance companies rely on as a backstop against the massive claims a major hurricane generates.
Carter said higher property insurance is being driven by the rising cost of re-insurance, the rising cost of materials and labor, insurance fraud and the roughly $48 billion in claims after hurricanes Irma (2017), Michael (2018), Nicole (2022), Ian (2022) and Idalia (2023).
Of those storms, only Nicole, a Category 1 hurricane that came ashore in 2022 just south of Vero Beach, made landfall on Florida's East Coast. Still, despite the fact that recent major hurricanes have tended to strike the west coast of Florida, the Big Bend area or the Panhandle, southeast Florida homeowners have seen their property insurance costs spike.
"Even though southeast Florida hasn't been hit directly, there's still the risk," Carter said.
Could help on rising insurance costs be coming soon?
Carter said homeowners can cut costs by seeking out premium discounts, bundling property insurance with other types of insurance, raising their deductible and by comparison shopping.
While homeowners are grappling with painful cost increases, Carter said relief could be on the horizon.
In the last six to eight months, eight insurance companies have given notice that they are planning to reduce rates, and nine have said they plan to hold rates steady, she said. Eight other companies have expressed interest in offering policies in the state, which would increase competition and potentially lower costs.
Each of those developments "tells us the industry is responding to the reforms that have been made," Carter said.
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him atwwashington@pbpost.com.Help support our work;subscribe today.
