Sink Hole Insurance warning
 

Just made an offer on a house for sale that was a sink hole property that had been repaired by an engineering company. We proceeded to try and get insurance on the property and were told that they would try and find an agent. An agent contacted us and said that she might possibly find someone that would insure us with a homeowner's policy but that it would be about 3X higher and it would not be a sink hole policy but the house would be covered for sink holes under catastrophic coverage (house uninhabitable). She also told us that we could be dropped at anytime. I talked to the Florida Board of Insurance and was advised that I should walk away from the contract. Evidently The Villages does not report the sink holes to the State. The person I spoke with said that many people have bought property before they checked on insurance. We really want to move here but now we are having second thoughts. Needless to say, we walked away from the contract. Still looking!

Why tempt fate by buying a sinkhole property?

Resales are plentiful within TV and new homes qualify for sinkhole coverage.

Good luck with your search.

I think you will find that a large part of Fl has potential sinkhole problems so you will have to accept the risk or try and find another part of the country that does not have the problem. I think you will find the frequency of sink holes to increase the closer you are to a water feature (just a very limited observation). Thus I would buy a property that was not located close to water, inducing the ponds that are catch basins built to retain water.

I saw sinkhole property repaired where they went down to bedrock and pumped in grout to form firm foundation from 90 ft deep to the surface around the whole house. Cost was about $90,000. That property seems better protected from sinkholes than any of the neighbors or most other properties in the villages. Seems strange that insurance company won't go near well engineered foundation and will insure untested properties.

Is there a way to assess sinkhole risk?

Slight correction. There is no "bedrock" in Florida. It's either sand or water.

Skip

I don't understand the part above highlighted. Could you explain?

..I do not understand it either.
The Villages would not be involved with the property AFTER they sold it when new.

The engineering firm and/or the "mudding" contractor would obtain a permit to
perform the needed injections and support structures into the ground.

The permit would be obtained from the jurisdiction in which the property is located. For example.........................Sumter County
.......Lake County
...... Marion County
.......Lady Lake
......Wildwood, etc.
The presiding jurisdiction would report the Sinkhole repair to the State...
...if required.

In my humble opinion.......
...........the developer ( The Villages ) would has no involvement with this.

Pay attention, folks. There's more and more clear logic showing up here.

Sink Hole
 

The gentleman I spoke with at the Florida Dept. of Insurance said they started trying to keep up with where the sink holes are within different areas, but they quit trying because people were not reporting them. I asked him if it wouldn't be better to buy a property that was already repaired (concrete pilings) but he said absolutely not. After your property has been reported to an insurance company as a "sink hole property", repaired or not, it would be difficult or impossible to get coverage. If you did get coverage, the insurance company can cancel you or go up on your insurance at any time. After much research on sink holes, I am more aware now when I look at a house to watch out for the sink hole warning signs. Many persons put their properties on the market when they first start seeing signs or sink hole possibilities; thereby making them so called "unaware".

Sink Hole
 

There is but it is costly. You have to get an engineering company to do ground testing. You can find the 9 sink hole warnings on the internet.

Was the property close to a retention pond? I've observed that many of the sink holes that happened in TV appear to be near the man made retention ponds.

If that's the case, I would think waterfront property would not be worth the premium that is being charged.:shocked:

I think you've made this observation before in other posts. I'm wondering if you have any statistics available to support your theory about sink holes and water features. Or is this from your personal experience living in The Villages? I'd be most interested to see any statistics.

Yes I have as I think it is something that a lot of people over look. But this is just an observations while I was in the Villages for two weeks in the summer of 2012. I saw two sinkholes next to ponds and in discussions with residences it seemed that the holes tended to happen near water. I think I read in the paper that during the time I was there 13 sinkholes occurred in the county. I do not remember which of the 3 counties. In Ocala at the new Del Web I also saw a sink hole by water and got the same story. In the same area, where the builder does not put in ponds (just grass cover catch-basins) only heard of one sink hole happening on the golf course (no water feature) and that was over the past few years. The salesman told me they do not make the catch basin ponds as they think this can lead to sinkholes due to the weight of the water on the land and the erosion of the limestone in heavy rains and when leaks happen in the ponds linings. Other than stay away from the water I did not come up with any solution. You just have to accept the risk.

Interestingly, I just found the following on Wikipedia, which supports the idea that catch basin ponds can lead to sinkholes: "Some sinkholes form when the land surface is changed, such as when industrial and runoff-storage ponds are created; the substantial weight of the new material can trigger an underground collapse of supporting material, thus, causing a sinkhole."