How to Find The Best Florida Home Insurance Quotes
Florida home insurance rates are the product of a perfect storm of factors, including pricey real estate, flooding, thunderstorms, tornadoes, wildfire, and, of course, hurricanes and tropical storms. Not surprisingly, there is no such thing as cheap home insurance in the Sunshine State. In fact, according to a recent study by the Insurance Information Institute, home insurance rates in the state of Florida averaged a whopping $1,583 per year, giving it the dubious distinction of being the most expensive state in the nation where home insurance is concerned. For that reason alone (and quite a few others), it’s important that you know how to play the game of getting reasonable Florida insurance quotes and quality coverage if you’re shopping around for home insurance in Florida.
Understanding Home Insurance Risks in Florida
For starters, consumers need to realize that insurance providers aren’t entirely responsible for the exorbitant rates of Florida home insurance quotes. On the contrary, you might as well wag your finger at Mother Nature if you’re looking for someone to blame. And while hurricanes are the single biggest cause for Florida’s home insurance woes, they certainly don’t corner the market. Here’s a list of reasons why home insurance costs a pretty penny in the Sunshine State:
- Thunder and Lightning: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Florida peninsula has a higher thunderstorm frequency rate than anywhere else in the United States, as well as the nation’s highest density of lightning strikes.
- Tornadoes: Florida experiences more Tornadoes per square mile than any other state in the Union, according to the 1999 Tornado Project.
- Flooding: The National Flood Insurance Program warns that as much as 80% of Florida’s population lives in areas that are at high-risk for flooding. Those are sobering statistics in a state where more than 18 flood-related federal national disasters have been declared since 1997.
- Wildfire: According to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the risk of severe wildfire has increased as Florida’s urban wildlife interface grows and the population pushes inland from the coasts.
- Hurricanes: Last, but certainly not least, Florida experiences a higher rate of hurricanes than any other state in the nation. Florida has weathered close to 500 recorded tropical and subtropical cyclones to date, and has been struck by hurricanes in 141 of the last 159 years.
Finding Home Insurance Coverage in Florida
How hard is it to find reasonable home insurance coverage in Florida? Let’s put it this way: for many homeowners it’s hard to find home insurance in Florida, period. According to data from the National Hurricane Center, Florida has fallen victim to 6 of the 10 costliest hurricanes in United States history – hurricanes that were responsible for a staggering $181 trillion dollars in total damages. Even more shocking is the fact that every one of those storms made landfall since 1992. As a result, many insurance providers have chosen to pull out of the Florida home insurance market altogether rather than weather another storm of hurricane related property claims. What does all this mean for you? While the state of Florida has instigated policies to regulate and cap home insurance rates, and has even created agencies to aid homeowners who can’t obtain affordable home insurance, that lack of competition and the inherent risk of insuring a home in Florida mean that you need to utilize every resource at your disposal in order to track down affordable Florida home insurance quotes.
The Great Equalizer: Online Florida Home Insurance Quotes
In a climate where home insurance rates are through the roof, and where simply obtaining insurance coverage can be a challenge, the proven techniques of soliciting a number of home insurance quotes, playing those quotes off of one another in order to bargain for better rates, and continually checking your present coverage against regular fluctuations in the home insurance market, have never been more important. That’s why online insurance quote providers like NetQuote.com are such a valuable asset for homeowners in the Sunshine State. Not only do they provide you with all of the advantages mentioned above, but they do it free of cost, so that you can focus all of your energies on saving money on Florida home insurance, instead of making it more expensive than it already is.
