Homeowner's Insurance $$$

My ex is currently paying approx $1200 a year in homeowners insurance. Granted, this is Florida, where several hurricanes have hit in the recent past, BUT he just received a notice that it was being increased to $7200.00!!! OUTRAGEOUS!!! How are people supossed to live??? Who can come up with $500.00 extra a month???

FYI - and many of you know this already, he is my ex husband, but good friends with my husband and myself. He still has "visitation" with Oliver and came to his birthday party last Tuesday.

Originally Posted by Rockcat

My ex is currently paying approx $1200 a year in homeowners insurance. Granted, this is Florida, where several hurricanes have hit in the recent past, BUT he just received a notice that it was being increased to $7200.00!!! OUTRAGEOUS!!! How are people supossed to live??? Who can come up with $500.00 extra a month???

FYI - and many of you know this already, he is my ex husband, but good friends with my husband and myself. He still has "visitation" with Oliver and came to his birthday party last Tuesday.

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Wow, that's quite a price increase. At rates like that the insurance companies won't be getting many renewals of insurance.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

Wow, that's quite a price increase. At rates like that the insurance companies won't be getting many renewals of insurance.

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True. He's going to shop around. The problem is so many insurance companies are cancelling their customers. Allstate is cancelling over 6000 in my county.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

Wow, that's quite a price increase. At rates like that the insurance companies won't be getting many renewals of insurance.

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Unfortunately, if you have a mortgage, you gernerally have to have homeowner's insurance. They've got you by the, er, ear. We only pay $500 a year, but aren't really in danger of natural disasters.

Oh my goodness, I cannot believe that!! I would be so mad, for sure!!

Uhm... yeah definitely shop around. I'm also on the space coast and I don't pay anything near that amount. Actually, I pay even less than your original amount and have some great coverage.

PM me if you want a recommendation on a good person in the area to talk to.

Originally Posted by MuttigreeMom

Uhm... yeah definitely shop around. I'm also on the space coast and I don't pay anything near that amount. Actually, I pay even less than your original amount and have some great coverage.

PM me if you want a recommendation on a good person in the area to talk to.

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Thanks! I just did.

I think the cost of all sorts of insurance is getting silly. I got the re-newal note for Chloe's pet insurance today and it has gone up 36percent, so I am shopping around now.

We are in the panhandle of Florida and Allstate has just about canceled every homeowners insurance in our county. It is awful. I sure hope he's able to find someone cheaper.

Thanks everybody! Maybe I should be glad he got the house?

Originally Posted by Rockcat

He's going to shop around. The problem is so many insurance companies are cancelling their customers. Allstate is cancelling over 6000 in my county.

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There's not a lot of options.
Insurance companies are bailing out of Florida in droves.

If you have private company homeowners insurance you are lucky, and you will do nothing to jeopardize it. Companies are not writing any new policies- if you lose yours you for some reason you will be forced to buy from a government created company (Citizens) just like the new folks that move down here.
it is a terrible situation.

Ours is increasing 50% this year- I haven't gotten the figures yet and will probably have a heart attack when I do, but there simply is not another option.
Folks are moving out of South Florida in droves- not directly because of the hurricanes but because the increases in homeowners insurance as a result of the hurricanes is forcing them out of their homes.

More details here.

Oh that is just awful!

Here's the deal with the price increase, they can't nonrenew him because he hasn't done anything wrong (i.e. committed insurance fraud), but the insurance company doesn't want him to renew. It's getting too expensive to do business in Florida, due to the type of weather related events that happen there. IMHO contact your Department of Insurance, photocopy the renewal, and send it over to them. The more people that complain the more gets done. You can force insurance companies to stay in your state, it's happened before in places like New York, where the state wouldn't let insurance companies leave despite high rates of insurance fraud.

Yikes I think we pay around $500 for the top of the line American Family homeowners policy and we thought ours was high. I know if we had auto and homeowners at the same company we could bump our liability ins to a $1 million umbrella for the same price we are paying now. The only reasons we know ours is a bit high is due to the wood stove and only having a volunteer fire dept-these volunteer depts get various ratings plus the distance from one's house-we are 8 miles away from our townships firedept even though the next township's is only 2 miles away!!
I'll be happy at what we pay!!

Originally Posted by AnnasMom

Unfortunately, if you have a mortgage, you gernerally have to have homeowner's insurance. They've got you by the, er, ear.

We only pay $500 a year, but aren't really in danger of natural disasters.

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So true. The banks want to make sure they get their money if anything happens before your mortgage is paid.

Interestingly enough, just this past week I was talking to my insurance broker and when I mentioned that she still had the bank as owning a mortgage on our house and that it should be changed to reflect that we have no more mortgage, (we are finally mortgage free as of January), she indicated that now that the mortgage is paid our home insurance rate will go down with the company we are with. That was some pleasant news.

Our homeowners insurance is about 400 dollars a year, but we live in a flood zone so, since our house isn't paid off, we have to carry flood insurance which runs us another 400 dollars. So all together we pay about 800 dollars a year.

The sad thing is, the body of water that causes us to be a flood zone is a two foot deep creek about 50 yards from our house. Our house sits much much higher than the creek and I can't imagine what kind of rain we would have to have for our house to actually flood. The city says its a flood zone though, so what can you do?

I can't imagine paying 7200 dollars a year for insurance, how could anyone afford that?

Originally Posted by maddensmom

I can't imagine paying 7200 dollars a year for insurance, how could anyone afford that?

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That's just it- nobody can.
And you can't move, as the bottom has almost dropped out of the housing market, around here anyway.

My insurance isn't that high- it is something on the order of $2000 a year, but I have that 50% increase coming up and it's going to be a problem.
My flood insurance is around $400, and I only have to have that because our property is two feet above sea level.

And as if the insurance premiums weren't bad enough, we no longer are offered $$ amount deductibles- it is a % of the value of the home. I can't recall the number, maybe 2%?? Which would give me a deductible of $6000.

We hate hurricanes- it really is beginning to affect our quality of life.

I have an elderly mother in law nearby, so it is not even an option for us to move. Once she's gone if the housing market opens back up you bet we're out of here. It is a very nice place to live with a million extra super good qualities, but the cost of living is going to drive us all away.

ETA- More disturbing news about this desperate situation.