Florida Ranks Second Nationally in Home Insurance Premiums
A recent report from Bankrate.com has revealed that Florida has the second highest average home insurance premiums in the United States. According to the report, Floridian homeowners pay an average annual premium of $5,400, which is nearly $3,100 more than the national average.
Orlando homeowner Mike McKee recently experienced a significant increase in his home insurance premium when he switched from the state’s insurer of last resort to a different company. “It went up about $400 this year, and so that took me from $1,500 to $1,900,” McKee said. “I know that other people have had draconian changes, so I’m lucky.”
McKee’s insurance increase occurred just before Hurricane Milton damaged his metal roof, causing significant damage to his home. “So, it penetrated right through to the front room, and so that had to be repaired,” he explained. “The insurance company, you know, you’re paying all this money, and the insurance company only paid about three quarters of the cost of the damage to the house.”
Mark Friedlander from the Insurance Information Institute provided some context for the high premiums. “Florida will always be an above average state for insurance because of the high risk for severe storms,” he said. However, Friedlander noted that the insurance market is improving, and homeowners now have more options to shop around for better rates before hurricane season begins.
“The market is improving,” Friedlander stated. “There are now options to shop your coverage and you perhaps could get a better rate than you’ve been paying for the last several years.”
Despite this positive development, McKee remains concerned about the high cost of home insurance in Florida. “I just don’t even agree with the premise that it’s okay, that it’s stabilized,” he said. “$5 eggs stabilized is still $5 eggs over what it was a year or two ago. They’re still super expensive.”
According to Bankrate.com, Florida ranks second only to tornado-prone Nebraska in terms of the highest home insurance premiums. Homeowners in neighboring Georgia pay roughly $3,500 less per year than those in Florida.
