Experts Believe The Time To Act Is Now Before Florida's Homeowners Insurance Crisis Becomes Catastro

CBS4's Joe Gorchow spoke with a Parkland woman waiting for her claim to process after her insurance company went into liquidation.

[aardvarkairsoft]

you can pay your insurance on time monthly for years and they can just drop you and you get nothing back is just plain theft. Plus the fact that you often have to sue them to get the service you pay for.

[topchief]

Caused by 3 factors: Greed, Fear & Narcissistic Tendencies.

[tonyrussi]

an insurance policy is NOT a maintenance agreement.

[dyllinroberts]

But not mentioning the biggest offenders in the situation, companies like BlackRock coming in buying up all the nice properties above market value driving prices up

[paulconner]

I guess Florida forgot to include this in their sales pitch about how wonderful it is to live there. I live just outside Pittsburgh and only paid $900 for my annual homeowners insurance policy.

[Sailoralso]

I think the finger is pointing in the wrong direction. Big insurance, , the bad guy !! But how many home owners have a leak in the bathroom, the carpet gets wet, , and they immediately peal out the carpet the flooring the walls. I am a licensed builder, , , and the story told by the lady, , , the water had been in the carpet for one day. Fans and dehumidifier could have dried it out. A good steam cleaning with the suction device to pull the watewr out. The was no reason to pull out the carpet. Yes the leak had to be accessed and fixed, , but why pull out the bath wall, the tile, the floor, , the vanity, , The wall on the other side is a flat wall in the living room.

No. Black mold does NOT happen in a day, , it takes months and black mold can be killed with Clorox and kept from coming back with 20 Mule Team Borax. So instead of the repair requiring 600 dollars and a talented plumber and drywall repairman two days, , no you have to rip it all out aand bill the insurance company 20, 000 dollars. It is no wonder that your insurance rates are 20 times higher than mine. This lady did it, , and a 100, 000 other ladies just like her did it. It is not the fault of big insurance.. it IS your fault.

[jffrck]

i can see a dozen things in that wall and house that look shady and wrong. I wouldnt insure that garbage either...

[johnschnellbach]

Florida Man here. I'll tell you how I fixed the problem. I took out a non-secured loan and paid off my house. I then no longer need insurance. At $7000 a year, I'll take the risk. Why?

In over 30 years, I never had a claim.
Even if you do have a claim, the insurance company either shorts you or just outright stiffs you.

[barkwaybarkway]

The FL legislature has been GOP controlled for many years. They could have done something about this LONG ago but politicians are in cahoots with the housing related industries from realtors, to builders, to insurers. They aren't remotely concerned about FL residents and homeowners because they are controlled by campaign donors.

[mikedoran]

If any legislation is past, the odds of it benefiting the home owner is unlikely. The insurance companies are spend our premiums to lobby for regulation which benefit themselves not home owners.

[meatball]

I am in the same exact situation as the first lady. Never even gotten a notice that they were liquidating. Found out on April 11th that they were being liquidated on April 13th. Just paid my premium on April 2nd ($3600) and had to scramble to find coverage going into this hurricane season. Finally was able to get approved with citizens, now I just have to wait to hopefully get refunded for the yearly premium I paid 11 days before they went under

[johnmacchione]

Not sure what he's going to do. My insurance has already went up 160% since I bought my home..

[thebear]

Insurers spend billions of dollars on stadium endorsements, advertising, and million dollar salaries - but blame their inability to do what they were created to do (insure people) on consumers. Maybe if the CEOs of these publicly traded company’s were not worried about driving up their stock price but instead worried about all the every day people that are being harmed by their bad business practices of denying and underpaying valid claims, they may not have this problem.

These billion dollar companies continue to push lobbying efforts to strip consumers and homeowner’s of their rights all so they can take in more money and continue to get away with not paying claims. Guarantee - no matter what the Florida Legislature passes, rates will not go down… they never do. And the result will be that homeowners ability to bring any claim under the policy they pay for will be limited or constrained.

[anthonyglaser]

It would be cheaper to just take the money you would pay for home owners insurance and put it in an account and self insure.

[wdwerker]

Insurance companies tendency to try every means possible to weasel out of paying claims plus lawyers figuring out creative ways to sue for damages ….sounds like medical malpractice and homeowners have much in common.

[rollerriderz]

This story is total crap. Lawsuits wouldn't get filed if claims were paid properly. The claim total multiplies immensely due to the suit. As a contractor I do not get the insurance company involved unless it is truly justified. I know there are many unscrupulous contractors out there that do and take advantage, but that does not make these companies go broke.

[kevinscannell]

Yeah, sure, we'll fix the insurance crises that affects every person in the state. Just let us finish the important work of banning books and fighting with Mickey Mouse.

[cabh]

This is the part where someone explains to the insurance company that is cheaper to pay for the repairs then it is to fight them in court because they refuse to pay for the repairs. Funny thing is my house had water intrusion from the roof only 3 years old 15 years ago and they would not cover any repairs related to the damage. If a national emergency isnt activated bringing fema to bail them out, they could care less. So all of the damage to the roof and to the interior of our home had to come out of our pocket. And it doesn’t do anything but keep getting worse as time goes on and every screwball politician we get does some kind of bullshit legislation that they weasel around and make it worse than it was to begin with.

[uzifelner]

There may have some bogus claims I am sure of that, but it’s almost unavoidable reality that Spanish tiles are ( although ) beautiful but yet very venerable to aging, that’s why the projected life time is about 20 years. Many developments were built around 1998- 2000, and due to the extreme heat, strong winds the roof damage is a very common thing. That’s why we have insurance policies.
So the insurers would like to collect their fees, payout a claim is not part of their way of doing Business. Therefore they shut down when their claims are damaging their balance sheets.

[Davido]

Get out of FL while you can! Just terrible.