CITIZENS V. STANDARD CARRIER

Another consideration not to go with Citizens if at all possible.

From the mayhem that Hannah caused, another problem has arisen. If you had a water damage claim and submitted it to Citizens you have now precluded yourself from going with a standard carrier for at least the next 5 years. Water damage and dog bites are the big no-no’s when it comes to applying to one of the standard companies.

 So, if you have the option you should go with Universal or St john’s or the like. Use Citizens as truly the Carrier of last resort as it’s supposed to be.

FLOOD INSURANCE

Well, we all just learned a valuable lesson. Who cares if you are not in a Flood Zone. Get it anyway! $250,000 Building Coverage $100,000 Contents $348 per year if you are not in anything but an X Flood Zone. It’s cheap. The only down-side is there is a 30 day wait from the day the application is printed to the day it goes in force.

Can’t believe some of the blame games going on for  those affected and un-insured. Please don’t blame the Insurance guys. They were not standing there telling you not to buy it. The mortgage broker might have said it is not lender required, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have it. Most hazard Insurance carriers now require a signature saying you acknowledge there is no flood coverage.

I’ll make a prediction. Out of all the HomeOwners in Lamplighter Village less than 5% had Flood Coverage. I’ll make another prediction. Those un-insured HomeOwners will still not buy Flood Coverage because it won’t happen again and they will still have to wait the 30 days. Anyone take me up on that?

Give us a call for a quote.

 

 

 

 

STATE FARM AT IT AGAIN!

State farm have requested another massive increase for their profits. Should they get it? Some reporters think they should. Think it will shake the insurance tree even more? Maybe. Are they trying to price themselves out of the market or are they positioning themselves as the Mercedes of Insurers in Florida. Should they be allowed to do it? It’s a free market economy. Of course the politicians will never let it happen. Political suicide!

What do you think?

Hurricane Preparedness !

It’s that time of the year again. Hurricane season officially started yesterday and the media is already selling us Floridians on the fact that we are going to get whacked again. Makes good copy, I guess. The experts say we are going to have another above average season for named storms as well as major hurricanes. In my opinion 1 major hurricane is too many.

Do we need to prepare, sure. Do we need to panic! Of course not. Bottled water, batteries for the flash lights, lots of canned goods and of course my favourite Ramen noodles. Have some cash of course.

I had an interesting conversation with my neighbour yesterday. We were out in our drives fireing up our generators and discussed what we do with the stored fuel needed for our back-ups. He was going to fill up his 5 gallon containers this week and have them ready to go. Storing them in his garage. As his Insurance Broker, friend and neighbour (not necessarily in that order) I suggested it may not be the safest thing to do to have 30 gallons of gasoline stored in a hot garage for months on end. I like to fill mine up as soon as the projected path of a storm comes over Florida. Is that prepared enough, I think so. Maybe the price of gas will have come down by then, too!

Can I get Insurance on my Beachside home?

Like most of us who live beachside, there is always the worry about whether or not I can get HomeOwners Insurance on my primary or rental property.

The answer is YES. If you live in Indialantic, Satellite, Indian Harbour, Melbourne or Cocoa Beach  there are several A Rated companies that will write your home.

If you were non-renewed by State Farm or Allstate you may have been told or received a letter from your agent that Citizens was your only alternative. Far from the truth. In fact some of the mis-information going around about that subject from State Farm, borders on mis-representation or even lies! I’ve seen some of the letters sent out to State Farm customers and the supposed facts in those letters is preposterous. You can understand why they are doing it of course. When you see that you may lose half of your customer base in 1 year, you are going to get desperate.

Citizens was never meant to be a primary carrier. It is supposed to be a last resort,not the company that an agent goes to first. If you live in a manufactured home beachside, then yes Citizens may be your only option. If it is a single family detached home then you have many options. Universal Property and Casualty, St Johns, Olympus will all write a standard HO3 (HomeOwners Policy). If the home is a higher value home then Lexington Insurance Company (AIG), and Beazley USA (Lloyds) would love to write the home.

There is really no place for a State run monopoly like Citizens to even be in the standard market.

When Allstate started non-renewing a few years ago they put (or tried to put) all of their customers with Royal Palm. That’s great except for the fact that Royal Palm’s rates are up to 30% higher than Universal’s or St john’s. If you were rolled into Royal Palm or Security First get a quote fast from Universal or St John’s.