Before Ian, for 2 years owned property value is up 58% +/-. Have not looked at replacement cost percentages. Only have few more years of winter living before selling (not big fan of Zwifting).

Material costs reflect inflation and everyone knows about that and it is country wide. My permanent home rates up about 6-7%. I think a major portion of rate increase is probabilities of weather damage. You know the thing that dumarses deny.

Is not insurance Federal and zoning local meaning instead moral hazard is introduced?

The point was you wanted the governor to fix insurance rates i.e. government intervention in business while calling him Mussolini who you know nationalized businesses.

Glad everything is fine though.

Did not say/intend that I wanted him to fix. He is one always going around tooting his horn and insurance rates one of his toot toots. He gets flood of Covid funding and thinks he generated a state surplus, but blames Joe for inflation. And seems with his attack of Disney….well

Govt sucks, but many of our corporate/for profit captains do too. Maybe yo and I can agree that Bret Farve sucks too.

Flood insurance is. But FL has had to develop a state insurance of last resort kind of program since so many property insurers avoid Florida. And if your house blew down before it washed away flood insurance won't cover it.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

That is true for flood insurance. Florida has a state run "insurance of last resort" called Citizens that offers standard homeowners polices including hurricane coverage. It was created because most of the national private insurers have stopped doing business in Florida.

Nationwide pulled out of Florida completely for property insurance several years ago. Several others have too. We aren't coming back. The risk is too high and the state wouldn't allow rate increases to satisfy our actuaries.

People mention New Orleans, Houston, Galveston, .... But those places get hit every now and then. FL is always in the crosshairs. FL has had 8 major hurricanes since 2000. Texas has had 8 since 1960.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

This was a big problem for people in the boulder area with the fire this year. They thought they were insured fully but because of the replacement factor it didn’t come close with the new build. That reminds me that I need to adjust ours to account for that.

We live in a very similar type of area backed up to open space. There is no reason we couldn’t have that same problem someday with a fire.

Interesting

No state income tax offsets quite a bit.

Amazing people in the “eye” came out ok. A friend in Fort Myers was also ok. Just a Little damage to his soffit.

I just saw the staging area of the power line workers in Clearwater. Geez. The compound looks like they set up for war. Tons of workers and job trailers, RV’s, etc. so many people they had flag workers to direct traffic in and out.

Power came back on at my house just a few minutes ago.

True, but someone has to pay. Tourists? No beaches, they ain’t coming. Sales taxes? Whole Food store prices generally higher in My area in FL than back home. Higher retail means higher sales tax. The quiet or less noticed way to get funds needed. But I am no economist.

Fun part is that Cititzens that knew it was underfunded, because it was not allowed to raise its rates high enough due to the law limiting them. So if they don't have enough money to pay for Ian damage, they then go to this system:

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1. Citizens Policyholder Surcharge

• One-time assessment
• Citizens policyholders only
• Up to 45% of premium (15% per account)

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2. Regular Assessment**

• One-time assessment
• Private-market policyholders, including, but not limited to homeowners, auto, and specialty and surplus lines policies
• Up to 2% of premium

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3. Emergency Assessment

• Single- or multiyear assessment
• Citizens and private-market policyholders
• Up to 30% of premium per year until any remaining deficit is eliminated (10% per account)

So it is possibly that even people with insurance not through Citizen may have to be pay an extra 30% above their already high premiums.

Going to be really interesting to see how this shakes out.

Florida property taxes are high. When my parents moved from Sanibel (small inland ranch- not big mansion) to Colorado there was not a big difference - tax just shifted from property to income.

We doubled our coverage after hearing from friends impacted by that fire.

I wonder if these subsidized programs should cover only an average house or something. Do your 10m house can only be covered for $1m in insurance. Ocean front Opulence is self insured?

Yeah. That's an artist's video rendering, not Ian.

Full video: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxm9rhcn4w8/

I just thought the awesome scale of the shot was appropriate here.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Getting back on track, reportedly the eye of what remains of Ian passed just a few miles from my house here in NC about an hour ago.

Had some wind, lots of rain but rather mild for all intents & purposes. Just drizzling rain now. Supposed to stop in a couple of hours or so......................

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Can’t be that general regarding property taxes. Look at Chicago suburbs verses coastal Florida and I bet Florida looks inexpensive.

Lots to into a states tax base as well as property taxes. Just saying you can’t make a general wide-based statement.

My wife actually talked to her mom today and they still don't have power but got little to no damage. A street over from them is almost demolished, only about 100 yards away. Very happy to hear about the family and glad everyone is ok.

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Glad to hear you go your power back and things are going better.

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

One other thing. Florida has a minimum 2% hurricane deductible. For those not familiar with percentage deductibles - it is 2% of your policy limit. So, if your house has a policy limit of $500,000, your hurricane deductible is $10,000.

Also, the insurance company can deny hurricane damage to your fence unless the fence is mechanically attached to the house.

They give concessions in order to entice companies to continue providing coverage in Florida.

My SIL was able to get a call out today from South Ft Myers area. She lives off Gladiolus Drive for those familiar with area. They had flooding during storm. but it has receded. Only damage was a few shingles are missingj. They are about 7 miles from FT Myers Beach which looks to be hit hard. The pier on Ft Myers beach is gone.

A story about bad timing...

My mother rented a place in a Port Charlotte mobile home community this winter. She was looking for a winter place, knew a few folks who had places in this community and gave it a shot. She spent three months down there and had all her kids and grandkids down, some of her siblings, met some great people...she LOVED it. She's also super close with her siblings and, for a variety of reasons, this mobile home community had three new owners: my mother bought a place for winter living; one of my aunts and her husband bought a place (site unseen...still) for winter living; and another aunt bought a place for full-time living. That aunt just moved down in June.

Well the aunt who moved down is in a hotel now, looking for long term housing. She's had it ROUGH - divorced about 8 years ago; two sons who are totally aimless, one of them was recently in detox and is battling alcohol issues and has never held down a real job; she's been in and out of cancer treatments; and to top it all off her hotel room had cockroaches. Anyway it sounds like her place was wiped out. My mother and other aunts places were spared, but one roof was ripped off and some windows are blown out. Even if they're repaired it sounds like the electric grid for this community won't be fixed for weeks if not months, not a priority since 90% of the homes are vacant until December.

Not a great introduction to Florida living for my family, that's for dang sure!

RELATEDLY: If anyone has any info or resources or advice on securing long term housing, either in the Florida Tampa/Ft Myers area specifically or post-disaster in general, please PM me!