No. One endangers the livability of the home and the safety of the occupants. The other is a big hole in the yard.

I see.... so if the mailbox falls in or a lake is drained or a sandtrap suddenly gets MUCH bigger - it is a sinkhole. And if the living room falls in it is a catastrophic ground collapse.

Did I get that straight? or did I get those reversed...

In Alaska, Which is worse, to be clawed and bitten by a bear, or gored by a moose?

There are natural dangers to man everywhere and insurance coverage too, unless we are self insured. It is a numbers game, not a scam.. No worries. We just have alligators and sinkholes and terrible lightning here in The Villages and people lined up to live here.

Gracie - Thanks for the info.

PS - given the choice I would go with the moose - they taste better than bear. I have faced both and ended up BBQing them both.

From your avatar, it looks like you are the one who was BBQ'ed. LOL :1rotfl:

Oh my goodness! Sometimes I read too fast and I thought for sure I had entered another dimension. I thought you wrote “gored by a morse.” And then I thought — who are you and what have you done with Gracie? (Insert charming smile here — a wicked one though it may be.)

About that getting clawed and bitten by a bear thing, well, at least I know that Medicare with a Plan F Supplement can be bought to cover such a possibility — for now.

Earlier in this thread, I wrote that I thought things had swung back to being able to buy additional, though expensive, sinkhole coverage to add to the catastrophic ground collapse in regular coverage. Later though, someone posted that they recently learned differently. Seems like getting to the actual facts of this matter would be an excellent lead for a cubby reporter — perhaps for The Daily Sun.

Risk tolerance varies for each of us, whether it be investing or jumping out of perfectly good airplanes or how much insurance we think we need. Whether we are talking about financial risk, the ability to self-insure, or simply the cost of sleep at night, we are all different.

I am respectful of the genuine concerns and questions of posters here and I hope the answers needed are coming with good solutions. There are those whose risk tolerance means they are perfectly willing to spend the money for the extra coverage and if they find out it truly cannot be bought, then they will think further and decide as individuals what lets them sleep at night.

The Villages has many wonderful things about it. I am certainly not TV bashing. I just wanted to say that I understand and appreciate questioning.

Wasn’t true in our case. We had a sinkhole inspection when we purchased our existing home one year ago and got coverage with a $5k deductible. State Farm.

First house new sinkhole coverage, second house new, could not get sinkhole coverage. Third house preowned was no when we bought, however three years later we just got notice we may be able to purchase sinkhole insurance this year.

perfectly said.

Sinkholes are scary. If I could not find a reputable insurance company to write sinkhole coverage on a property located in sinkhole country I certainly would not buy it.

I admit to being afraid of sinkholes. This IS an unusual time to have them here too.

I wonder if the enormous amount of water during Irma has anything to do with it. That was seven months ago.

I don't know. I don't like them.

State farm offers sinkhole insurance. We contacted Nathan Thomas (State Farm) over in Wildwood. It was around $238 with a 1% deductible. It covers not only sinkholes but ground settling if cracks start to occur in the house. It would covers the hole that just occurred in Pennecamp that was NOT touching the house. I just talked to them today and they reaffirmed this all. State Farm began writing home policies in Florida again in 2014. Since I had the up north, I moved my home owners policy back over to them. When we took out the policy last year, an inspection took place at my home. I believe I it was $35 that I had to pay. So.... there are some companies writing sinkhole insurance.

I got sinkhole coverage with Allstate. I decided on $1000 deductible but was offered $500 deductible.