[jarodrig]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

After Helene, I think our insurance rates are going to go up next year.

It is having a major impact on several states. I haven’t seen any damage estimate yet but it is going to be in the billions!

Mine went up about $600 over last year. Not one claim EVER.

Progressive

[Rainger99]

Originally Posted by danglanzsr

Insured losses from Hurricane, which wiped out Sanibel and large areas of Fort Myers’s Beach, were estimated at $29.4 billion. I would guess the damage in the Big Bend area would be less than that.

Moodys is predicting $20-34 billion! I believe that is for the entire damage to all states - not just Florida!

[Flyers999]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

Moodys is predicting $20-34 billion! I believe that is for the entire damage to all states - not just Florida!

The question arises is: If the Allstate in North Carolina loses mucho money due to hurricane damage restoration, does that affect the Allstate in Florida?

[Rainger99]

Originally Posted by Flyers999

The question arises is: If the Allstate in North Carolina loses mucho money due to hurricane damage restoration, does that affect the Allstate in Florida?

I hope someone can answer this question.

I always thought it was based on the insurance company's loss in the particular state so if you live in California or Florida, your rates are higher than if you lived in a state with fewer claims such as Vermont. And if you lived in a state with very few claims, your rates wouldn't go up because hurricanes hit Florida and earthquakes hit California.

But it would be nice to get an answer from someone who knows.

[JRcorvette]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

After Helene, I think our insurance rates are going to go up next year.

It is having a major impact on several states. I haven’t seen any damage estimate yet but it is going to be in the billions!

It will definitely have some effect on all of us. The big hit was with Citizens Insurance. Flood insurance is with the government and will have no effect on HO insurance. Another big hit is on Auto Insurance. It covers flood damage.

[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by jarodrig

Mine went up about $600 over last year. Not one claim EVER.

Progressive

Consider yourself lucky. We have owned 6 homes over our lives, never filed a single claim, just paid good money to have a brand new roof put on our Villages home, and we got dumped. Trying to find a new insurer to write a reasonably priced policy on our home certainly won’t get any easier after Helene.

In basic layman’s terms, property and casualty insurance companies are in the business of quantifying, pricing, and managing risk so that they make a profit and theirs claims paying ability wont’t be jeopardized by a single (or series of similar) event(s). Florida represents a uniquely difficult situation for them. Tropical storm risk has grown increasingly difficult to quantify, as with other risks (roofing scams and Florida being by and far the state with the highest insurance litigation in the entire country), quantifying risk accurately has become very very difficult. When risk can’t be quantified well, that has to be reflected in how they price and manage it. Pricing risk is relatively simple to explain, they either jack up premiums or change policy terms to lower what risk(s) are covered. Managing risk is more complex. That is where diversification of their overall portfolio of risk comes into play. Think of it as not putting all your eggs in one basket. They manage portfolio diversification by writing different lines of insurance (homeowners, auto, boat, RV, liability, etc…) and by segmenting those lines across markets with different (uncorrelated) risks (geographic regions, litigious climates, demographics, weather conditions and associated risks, et…). Aside from managing the diversification of their portfolio by what types of police’s they write, where the policies are, and who they write them to, they have the reinsurance market as a toll that is widely used to manage their risk. Reinsurance is difficult to explain, but think of it as a derivatives market where companies trade risk between each other. This market allows companies to manage their overall portfolios risk by offloading risk they want to reduce to another company that has capacity for that risk (at a price). The easiest way to explain this (trading risk through derivatives) is to take two parties in Vermont. One is a town with a limited snow removal budget and the other is a ski resort in that town. When there is a winter with no snow, the town has a huge budget surplus since no snow needs to be removed, but the ski area struggles and blows through huge sums of money making snow to try to stay open. When there is a winter with record snow, the towns budget is crippled by snow removal but the ski area thrives with business and doesn’t have the high expense of making snow. In the derivative market, the town and ski area agree to each put a bunch of money into a pot, with an agreement that if there is over X amount of snow, the town gets the money and if there is under X amount of snow, the ski resort gets the money. No matter how much, or little, snow there is that season, both parties will have some protection against the risk they could get financially crushed by a statistical outlier snow season. Insurance companies use the reinsurance market in a similar way to manage their portfolios risk. Unfortunately, the reinsurance market for tropical storm risk in the Florida region has all but dried up. To explain, go back to the above example. If most of the ski resorts went out of business, but all the towns required to remove snow still existed, there is an imbalance between the number of parties needing protection for opposing sides of statistically outlying snow seasons. On top of that, in recent years the amount of snow each season has become more difficult to predict, so agreeing on where to set the over/under on which party gets paid is difficult to agree on. Back to Florida, all insurance companies want to buy protection against tropical storm risk through reinsurance, but the other side of the trade has all but dried up at a price that is acceptable. Since the companies can no longer use the reinsurance market to manage that part of their portfolios risk, their only option is to get out of the state. That is why several very large and sophisticated national insurance Companies (Farmers, State Farm, The Hartford, Allstate, Progressive, etc…) have either pulled out of Florida entirely or are not writing new policies.

Sorry for running on, I tried to keep my explanation simple, but dumming down insurance risk management isn’t easy.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

After Helene, I think our insurance rates are going to go up next year.

It is having a major impact on several states. I haven’t seen any damage estimate yet but it is going to be in the billions!

The important thing is that in the near future insurance rates will go up and companies will leave Florida. The insurance companies are smart (more so than average Floridians) they have Climate Scientists on their payroll to tell them what is LIKELY to be the future Climate for Florida. They are telling the insurance companies that the whole Earth will continue to HEAT up and the effect will be GREAT on Florida. There will be hotter summers and GREATER change of hurricanes. So from a business point of view the insurance companies just LEAVE.
.....This should influence Floridians to leave Florida. Strangely the opposite is happening.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by dressler

This may be the worst storm in the history of Florida. The wind and the rain does not cause the most damage. It’s the coastal flooding. I just got back from Madeira Beach and it’s like a war zone. Buildings have had complete walls caved in from 6’ ft plus walls of water hit the sides.. there’s 3 to 3 1/2 foot of ocean sand on golf Boulevard that is expected to take doers and pay loaders up to a week to remove working 24 hours a day. The storm surges was 2 to 3 feet higher than any storm surge ever to hit the state of Florida in history. Because most of the causeways are closed, people are using boats to take supplies back-and-forth to residence. They wouldn’t even let people walk over the bridges to get to their homes. We had to hire a boat captain to take us in. Most houses have had 4 to 6 foot of water in them. I would estimate the damages to be in the hundreds of billions if not even a half $1 trillion.

Oregon does NOT allow any building within a 1/2 mile of the ocean. And they are not as FLAT as Florida. Florida should take a lesson from Oregon and make a one and a half mile from the ocean LIMIT. Each year the hurricanes will be stronger. This would be a good time for a far seeing state (Florida?) to stop rebuilding so close to the ocean. High insurance costs are giving people living close to the Gulf a hint. Will state government get the hint?

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Rocksnap

I’m closing on a house in Shady Brook, which for now is labeled as a Flood Zone. Flood insurance was extra, thru FEMA. Basically doubled my insurance. Can’t wait till the FEMA map is updated.

Good luck. I hope that there was a calculation as to whether living in that location is worth the RISK. And was the future environment part of the calculation?

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by motherflippinpicker

I'm also concerned about the rates going up. We moved here from coastal southern Florida because our insurance rates were nearly $1000/mo. Insurance priced us right out of our home.

It would be nice if insurance rates weren't absorbed by all but unfortunately rates have gone up in nearly every state. Florida needs a few years free from hurricanes.

Florida has the highest insurance rates in the US. And WHY would hurricanes stop hitting Florida? Is there an Earth cooling effect that scientists are NOT familiar with?

[kkingston57]

Originally Posted by Flyers999

Maybe, maybe not. Helene looks like another Idalia to me. A Cat 4 that hit the big bend area. Idalia estimates were around $3.5 billion damage, although that figure wasn't just the Florida damage. This is a low figure compared to other storms through the years.

The Big Bend area of Florida is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. It would be one of the cheapest areas of Florida to restore. Before Helene hit, they interviewed several people from Cedar Key, FL on the Weather channel and some said that homeowner's insurance was too expensive and they didn't have any. So, we'll save money there.

Most of the bad damage was caused by flood and suspect that the homeowners insurance claims will be a lot less. If storm hit Tampa big $$$ difference

[kkingston57]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

70,000 homes paying $1500 a year is $105,000,000.

How far would that go? Lightning fires, lawsuits, sinkholes, every year and then a major catastrophe-tornado, hurricane, every10 years.

Hopefully we have some retired insurance people or actuaries that can comment.

$1500 a year. That is going to dis appear. Ours has doubled in last 2 years. We live in a neighborhood with <100 homes and I know of 4 homes that had claims over last year and those 4 alone had payments of about 500K. 3 were for lightning strikes. That is high but if we averaged out the claims, claim cost alone for each resident would be 5K($500,000/100). That does not include other costs, agent commission etc.

[kkingston57]

Originally Posted by motherflippinpicker

I'm also concerned about the rates going up. We moved here from coastal southern Florida because our insurance rates were nearly $1000/mo. Insurance priced us right out of our home.

It would be nice if insurance rates weren't absorbed by all but unfortunately rates have gone up in nearly every state. Florida needs a few years free from hurricanes.

Hurricane free not going to happen. In certain respects Florida was lucky as it did hit a very lower populated area. Also moved from S. Florida and over rates there were 75% less but now we are paying about 1/2 of our old rate.

[kkingston57]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

Oregon does NOT allow any building within a 1/2 mile of the ocean. And they are not as FLAT as Florida. Florida should take a lesson from Oregon and make a one and a half mile from the ocean LIMIT. Each year the hurricanes will be stronger. This would be a good time for a far seeing state (Florida?) to stop rebuilding so close to the ocean. High insurance costs are giving people living close to the Gulf a hint. Will state government get the hint?

In Florida Keys, structures now built on stilts(8-10 feet high) Saw pictures in Big Bend area and houses were on 3-4 foot stilts. How much money did the builders give to the people who control building codes?

[asianthree]

Most likely if there wasn’t a flood policy, it may not be covered.

Our Oldest NC house across from barrier island, north of Wilmington 10’ stilts, with 5’ above sea level. Large 3 acre pond 10’ lower than house for drainage. Flood insurance was an option, chose to add 3 years ago. Both bridges to neighborhood are not passable, due to 19” of rain for 3 days prior to Helene so waiting for drone flyovers from insurance agent, for possible damage.

Their Greenville SC house newly built this year had 17” of rain, plus runoff from the mountains. No flood issues because of elevation, but multiple feet of flood water surrounding the area. Tree are blocking roads, cell towers are out, as well as power. Prediction 5-10 days before power restoration. They both closed their offices, and are driving to TV.

No flood insurance for SC house, but 4 blocks away homes multiple feet of water. Friends have flood insurance, and have already been in contact with their agent.

The bigger problem is all of the deviations in GA, where flood insurance probably wasn’t in the picture. So multiple claims, but what’s covered is a good question.