It’s Time For More Florida Home Insurance Cancellations

Just when you think things are returning to normal, something changes. More Florida home insurance cancellations are coming your way this year.

The largest private home insurance company in Florida is going ahead with an approved program to cancel 125,000 home, condo, and mobile home policies. While this is good news compared to the estimated 700,000 policies it was originally planning on non-renewing, this is still a significant number of Florida homeowners who are going to be scrambling to find new coverage.

Another large national company announced plans late last year to cancel another 60,000 policies as it continues to cut back its exposure in Florida. These policy cancellations might not be as big of an issue because the company struck a deal with another home insurance company in Florida to cover those homes. However, there is no guarantee that the policyholders who lose their coverage will be able to find a replacement. Homeowners in South Florida coastal counties such as Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach will struggle to find replacement coverage. Replacement coverage for those with older and wood frame homes will be challenging to find.

Finally, local Florida home insurance companies continue to examine the risks they currently have on their books and to do selective policy cancellations. A portion of this is due to their reinsurance agreements which limit how much risk they can assume in certain zip codes. Sometimes they make a business decision to cut back on coverage especially in the South Florida counties on the coast. Finally, some of the newer Florida take out insurance companies eventually reject policies that they’ve previously taken out of the state run insurance company after discovering risks that they don’t want to be exposed to. This might be a poorly built home or one that has not been kept in good condition.

If cancellations in the coming year aren’t enough to be worried about, here is another development that could cause even more policies to be dropped. A large number of homeowners insurance companies in Florida plan to implement an ambitious plan to re-inspect homes that they currently insure. Some of those homes could be in poor condition and may not be adequately protected enough to prevent hurricane damage to the home. If your home is re-inspected by your present insurance company and they find a significant difference between the condition of your home and what their records show, you could join the ranks of those who have been cancelled in the coming year.

Lastly, if you lose your coverage in the coming year, research the quality of any new company you are considering. Three companies suffered financial collapse in the last year and were taken over by the state. Plus, over 50% of the remaining companies that are still active had losses during the past year. If you lose your Florida home insurance policy this year, now is not the time to pick a new company solely on price. It has never been more important to shop around. Select the wrong company and you could be waiting a long time to be paid after the next Florida hurricane.

Keep a close watch on the news and your mailbox as the year unfolds. This might be the year that you have to face the prospect of losing your Florida homeowners insurance coverage.