In most Florida cities, the cost of homeowner’s insurance has at least tripled. You drive thru a neighborhood and you’ll see 20% of the houses up for sale…3 month later, half of those houses will be for rent. Yet, if you can’t afford the extra $4000 bucks a year for insurance, you probably can’t afford $1400 a month to rent a house. Even the cost of apartments are closing in on home rentals, leaving thousands of people with no option but to move out of state. This includes counties which haven’t been hit by hurricanes in 20+ years. How is this going to effect Florida’s economy in the long run? If the statewide census goes down, will prices go up? Is this going to force large corporations out of the state, leaving people jobless? Or will something happen in the future that will even things out and make living affordable? Floridians don’t have New York City type incomes, yet the cost of living is slowly headed in that direction. What’s your opinion about Florida’s future?
There are a lot of large corps down here…Blue Cross Blue Shield, Equifax/Certegy, Danka, IBM, Raymond James, Raytheon…unfortunately, they are downsizing and relocting due to skyrocketing insurance costs…and home resale values have more than doubled in the past 5 years…causing more taxes owed, and accounting for a portion of the insurance rates increase…but when those 4 hurricans hit Florida, the insurance co’s took advantage of everyone. No hurricanes in our area for over 20 years…minimal claims filed…its crazy to raise rates the way they have. We never got a refund during all those years when we didn’t see any hurricanes…this new Citizens Insurance of a last resort is actually at least 25% cheaper than insuring thru a large company…and guaranteed where as places like State farm will insure your car but not your home.