Insurance sucks!

[Sam Leon]

What are you guys paying for insurances?

I am looking at one insurance bill, just for one property and it's over $5000 a year.  That one I have a mortgage on with a $980 monthly payment and my insurance for that property is more than half the mortgage payment!

Granted, we have hurricanes down here, so we need a wind policy, a flood policy (depending how coastal you are) on top of everything else.  Are there other cities with comparable insurance?  In California do you need an additional seismic policy?  In the midwest is there a mandatory tornado policy or something similar?

Anyways, there is very little shopping around, as most agencies just come back from the same carrier CITIZENS, since many private insurance companies stopped issuing new policies in South Florida.  So going around to different agents you are still getting the same quotes with very minor variations.

Citizens is expensive and it could go sky rocket.  In their policy it says that if Citizens does not have sufficient financial resources to meet the obligations after a major hurricane all Citizens policy holders will be required to pay additional surcharges and assessments over and above their policy premium which could exceed 45% of the annual premium.  That means I don't need to have a storm hit me right I am at, it could be a storm that hit Daytona Beach and every Citizens policy holder will have to pay an assessment.  Hey how about if there is no storm you send us back some money?

Recently one of my properties I received a takeout policy letter, saying at the end of my current policy for that property another company (Heritage Insurance) will be assuming the policy from Citizens.  I assume this means there are more private market carriers willing to offer insurance down here now?  I wonder if I should shop for new policies for all my properties?  I know many have recommended safeco and foremost but last time I called around they were not issuing new policies but that was years ago.