Florida’s homeowners premiums almost double national average

Tue Dec 24th, 2013 on     Homeowners Insurance,    

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners released its annual homeowners insurance rate report last week. Floridians will not be surprised to know that our average rate of $1,933 is the highest in the country — almost twice the national average and about four times as much as the lowest ranking state.

The report is based on 2011 data, the most recent available. What worries real estate professionals and lawmakers alike is that those premiums were lower than premiums in 2013. In the end, we could be even worse off than the NAIC says. The national average, too, could be much higher now; 2011 was before Superstorm Sandy hit the Northeast.

Regulators in Florida are wondering why our homeowners insurance rates are climbing, though, because we have had a few remarkably quiet hurricane seasons. The rest of the country has suffered severe storms, flooding, heat waves — there were times when we expected to read about frogs falling from the sky somewhere in the U.S. — but Florida has skirted major disasters. Why, then, are our rates continuing to rise and always so much higher than the rest of the country’s?

The Florida Chief Financial Officer has asked the insurance commissioner to look into the matter. The commissioner’s office has promised the report by mid-January.

No one is pointing fingers yet, but industry analysts and the media have noted the different styles of the state’s last two governors, a telling difference in light of 2014 being an election year. We’ll get into the particulars in our next post.

Source: The Ledger, “Report: Florida Homeowner Coverage Most Costly,” Zac Anderson, Dec. 17, 2013

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