Homeowner's Insurance rates should be getting some help from legislators

Jan
27

Let’s talk about one of the hot topics in Florida real estate today, homeowner’s insurance. Since 2004, South Florida’s homeowner’s insurance has more than tripled in cost. This has caused some Floridians to consider moving and others thinking about moving to our beautiful part of the country to go elsewhere. Well, help is on the way. So come on back to the sunny life.

Legislators have begun work to allow the state to pick up part of the tab when it comes to homeowner’s insurance. Other laws being considered to help this state wide problem are:

· Both houses of legislation have voted to repeal the state-run Citizens Property Insurance rate increases of 21% that was to take affect in January and the other 56% increase that was to take effect in March.

· Both houses have called for the end of Citizens Property Insurance’s requirement for their rates to be higher that private insurers.

· The house is asking for profits from insurance companies to be returned to home owners and that all rate hikes would have to be reviewed before taking effect.

· National insurance companies would have to take national profits into account when setting Florida rates unlike the current plan of just looking at Florida.

Even the US Congress has begun looking into the problem and has asked local representatives, Ron Klein of Boca Raton and Tim Mahoney of Palm Beach Gardens have been selected by the Financial Services Committee to head up property insurance reform in the 110th Congress. Who should know about this issue more than our local representatives.

Florida is known for its beaches and tropical weather. We would never want to trade that. But we as Floridians must take into account that there are risks associated with that and work together to fix the problem of higher insurance rates for homeowners before our economy and real estate markets are hit by the outcome. The only way to do that is to work together. Everyone has their own ideas and not everyone will agree with how to solve the issue at hand but there is a good start on the table.