Second Home (Florida) Insurance Question

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Some here have talked about "self-insuring" in Florida, because of the insurance mess.

Does anyone here have a second home in Florida that they do not have insurance on, and do you have liability coverage on it through a homeowners policy elsewhere or a liability umbrella?

A complicating factor is that our homeowners and liability umbrella is with State Farm. They don't do homeowners in Florida, so I don't know about extending liability from a policy in another state to Florida.

It is one thing to "self-insure" a house, but another altogether to expose yourself to a liability and not insure against it.

[pranas Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pranas]

If you have a mortgage, you will not be able to self insure. Many of my neighbors do self insure because the cost of insurance near the coast in Florida is so high. If you live near the coast, the value of your lot may be higher than the value of the house. Everytime I talk about dropping my insurance, my daughter gets really upset but one of these days I will. If the house is well built it probably will not be totally destroyed by wind. Several years of insurance payments may be enough to cover the damages plus you will receive a break on your taxes. Wind insurance will not pay for damage caused by water. However, flood insurance is cheap compared to wind insurance. I suggest you run the numbers yourself to see what works for you. When doing your calculations keep in mind the way the deductable works for Citizen's wind insurance. You pay the first 2 or 5 % of your home's value depending on your policy and then the insurance pays 90% of the rest. If the insurance company determines that you are underinsured, you will get docked for that also. And don't forget about the hassle you will have with Citizens. Be prepared to have to hire some one to help you.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

It worked out . . . we got insurance. Not being able to was switching our purchase to a cash transaction, but now we are back to closing with a loan . . . Monday.

We will probably have to do roof work immediately . . . but could not before because we did not own the house yet.

Catch 22 . . . we needed to own the house to do the repair and we needed to do the repair to own the house.

It is with Citizens because that is the only company . . . I checked with every agent in town!!!!

As far as Liability only, I did not get to that point because the agent got us homeowners. But, as far as the liability umbrella we already have, that extends to our second home if it is insured, but does not if it is not insured.

So it does.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Citizens is the only game in town statewide for initial underwriting, then they will sell your policy to some no name game who will go belly up and then you'll be right back with Citizens but with a policy increase.
It's par for the course for FL insurance.

That's why I'm self insured.

I'm glad your dream is finally coming true even if you can't see my posts.

[pagehoughton Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pagehoughton]

I would never take the chance to self-insure. Home insurance covers more than just the structure of the house; it covers the cost to rebuild and replace your possessions inside the house. Are you ready to take such a huge risk?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I would never take the chance to self-insure. Home insurance covers more than just the structure of the house; it covers the cost to rebuild and replace your possessions inside the house. Are you ready to take such a huge risk?

The huger risk is liability. It could wipe you out.

Those who think the unusual or unlikely could never happen to them think that only because the unusual or unlikely has never happened to them. Anything can happen to anyone and anything can happen in a court of law. The uninsured would rather learn the hard way rather than the easy way . . . from someone else's experience. It only takes one person to turn your life into misery, and there seems to be an abundance of them so inclined.

When I got the owner of the insurance agency to intervene, I asked him if we could get liability only (in which case we would gone uninsured on the structure and contents . . . for now . . . if it had been a cash purchase), and he said to let him try to get the homeowners policy first. Since he got it, I never got an answer.

It has always been my experience that you had to have a homeowners policy to have liability . . . but, FL is FL, and nothing else is as screwed up as FL.

In any event, since we got a homeowners policy on the second house, our libaility umbrella will extend to it.