Florida folks. Homeowner's insurance?

[Wildcat]

Can those of you who live in FL give me some guidance on homeowner's insurance?

Specifically, I've read things here and there that say it's hard to get and super expensive, but I haven't seen specifics. If anyone is willing to share in general terms what they (or family or friends) pay for their insurance per $100,000 value --or some other ratio-- , the approx sqft that's insured, and whether it's flood or non-flood zone, I would really, really appreciate it.  I know there are factors like bundled policies with autos, claims history, how close to the coast, etc, but at this point, I'm just looking for general stuff like would I be looking at $3,000 a year, $8,000 or $13,000. 😱 (man, I hope not! Haha). That sort of thing.

Also, how difficult is it to find a company that will issue a HO policy?

Thanks in advance!

[Joker]

It’s been a few years since we left Florida but I don’t think ours was too expensive.  I will advise that even if not in a flood zone that you purchase flood insurance though. We were not in a flood zone but the first year in our home a tropical storm (so not even a hurricane) almost caused flooding for us. We had moved everything off the floor because the water was coming fast to our doors. We purchased flood insurance right after. It wasn’t difficult to get insurance for us though.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Joker

[Melissa B]

It's really going to depend on where you live and what type of home you are trying to insure. Is it a block home, stilted home, wood frame, modular, etc? Mobile homes are really hard to insure. Houses on the water that are not stilted are also very hard. Wood frame is more expensive than block. Homes with roofs over 15 years old are really hard to insure without first replacing. Price is also going to depend on how high above sea level your lot happens to be. Houses in the same neighborhood have different prices just because the elevations are different. Our flood insurance is separate from homeowner's insurance. I think that is more common, at least around here. I know a lot of people (most in fact) that are at the $3000 or less price range, but I also know people that are way over the $13000 range, especially in the Keys.

[CinV]

I live in North Florida, Jacksonville metro area.  3,000 sq. ft., appx. $350,000 value, no flood insurance (not near enough to water to need it), and pay right at $1,000/yr.. We go through Progressive, do not have the house bundled with auto and have a low deductible w/ standard hurricane deductible.  The price we pay is reflective of the house only being 6 years old, so it meets the highest hurricane building codes and is in an area of Florida that historically does not get direct hits.  Put this exact house down in Tampa or Miami and we'd pay 4x the cost, easily.

How difficult it will be to find a company to issue insurance depends on mainly two things - location and how old your roof is.  The closer you are to the coasts, the further south you are and your roof being over 5 years old make finding companies more difficult.

[Wildcat]

20 hours ago, Joker said:

It’s been a few years since we left Florida but I don’t think ours was too expensive.  I will advise that even if not in a flood zone that you purchase flood insurance though. We were not in a flood zone but the first year in our home a tropical storm (so not even a hurricane) almost caused flooding for us. We had moved everything off the floor because the water was coming fast to our doors. We purchased flood insurance right after. It wasn’t difficult to get insurance for us though.

Thanks.

I figured we would get flood insurance no matter what. I seem to remember reading somewhere that most of Florida can technically flood.

19 hours ago, Melissa B said:

It's really going to depend on where you live and what type of home you are trying to insure. Is it a block home, stilted home, wood frame, modular, etc? Mobile homes are really hard to insure. Houses on the water that are not stilted are also very hard. Wood frame is more expensive than block. Homes with roofs over 15 years old are really hard to insure without first replacing. Price is also going to depend on how high above sea level your lot happens to be. Houses in the same neighborhood have different prices just because the elevations are different. Our flood insurance is separate from homeowner's insurance. I think that is more common, at least around here. I know a lot of people (most in fact) that are at the $3000 or less price range, but I also know people that are way over the $13000 range, especially in the Keys.

Oh yeah, I forgot about those things. We're looking at block-built, not close enough to the coast to require evac (about 45 minutes to the coast), probably in the Tampa area lattitude-wise. I was off-the-cuff guessing about $5,000. If the Keys are around $13,000, that makes me feel better.

19 hours ago, CinV said:

I live in North Florida, Jacksonville metro area.  3,000 sq. ft., appx. $350,000 value, no flood insurance (not near enough to water to need it), and pay right at $1,000/yr.. We go through Progressive, do not have the house bundled with auto and have a low deductible w/ standard hurricane deductible.  The price we pay is reflective of the house only being 6 years old, so it meets the highest hurricane building codes and is in an area of Florida that historically does not get direct hits.  Put this exact house down in Tampa or Miami and we'd pay 4x the cost, easily.

How difficult it will be to find a company to issue insurance depends on mainly two things - location and how old your roof is.  The closer you are to the coasts, the further south you are and your roof being over 5 years old make finding companies more difficult.

Wow. Your insurance is much less than our house two states away!! We're looking at around 2,000 sq.ft., $300,000 ish house, about half way down the state an hour inland. I sure hope that helps some with the cost. If your guesstimate of 4x the cost in Tampa hold true, that would put us just below my no-basis guess. It's a lot, but not completely outrageous.

Thanks for the help, everyone. Your replies are helping. 🙂

[ktgrok]

yes, where you are his a big factor. In my hometown the insurance on one side of a particular road was MUCH higher than on the other side. 

[Wildcat]

So, here's another question (OK, it's two questions).

Does anyone know if tile roofs cost more to insure than shingle roofs?  Does anyone have an opinion on tile vs shingle roofs? 

[Wildcat]

1 minute ago, Ktgrok said:

yes, where you are his a big factor. In my hometown the insurance on one side of a particular road was MUCH higher than on the other side. 

Wow. That puts a different spin on the phrase "living on the wrong side of the tracks", eh? 

I wonder if the insurance estimates on Realtor.com and Zillow are anywhere close to accurate?  🤔

[Lady Florida.]

Our current house (we close this afternoon on the new one!!!) is high and dry. We're on the east coast of Central Florida, about 2 miles from the river (technically a lagoon) with a barrier island on the other side of that water. Ours is a block house and not in a flood zone. This house is in Flood Zone X, which means less than 1% chance of annual flooding. We've never had flood insurance. Some areas it's not required but is recommended and ours doesn't even fit that. We've been here through 5 hurricanes and countless tropical storms and have never even had standing water. It's just under 1800 sq. ft. and insurance is around $2000 a year. Oh, the appraised value is around $160K and selling value about $230 - $250 (we're asking $235).

Our new house is a little over 1600 sq. ft. but is a duplex. The builder covers the outside (walls, roof, etc.) as well as the separating wall - I can't remember what that's called. We have to insure interior walls in a sort of condo policy. It's also in Flood Zone X so we didn't get flood insurance. It will cost us around $700 a year for this type of insurance. I don't recall offhand what the appraised value is but it cost us a bit over $350K with some upgrades we added.

I've lived in the same county of Florida for 50 years so I'm very familiar with what areas flood and which ones don't. If we moved out of the county I'd have to to more research and depend of FEMA maps.

As others said, it's going to vary wildly by location, elevation, what's been done to the house in terms of hurricane upgrades. An older roof or garage door might not be up to the most recent codes, and depending on how old they are you'll either pay more or you won't find a company willing to insure you. We had to replace both our roof and garage door before putting ours on the market for that reason.