Property value after sinkhole repair
After your home has experienced any sinkhole history and all repairs are completed, the story is far from over. Even if your repairs are successful and you never face a sinkhole again, you’re still left to deal with the property value of a home decreasing. So what can be done about this?
Your insurance policy
The purpose of an insurance policy on your home is that you are covered in case damage occurs. In the situation in which you need to use your insurance, the insurance company is supposed to return your home to its value and state pre-damage.
However, this isn’t ever the case. While you can very well repair your home to its original state, simply having a history of damage can significantly reduce its property value. One this occurs, there’s no bringing the value back up without investing in your home and bringing this value up in other ways.
Why your insurance won’t help
While the reasonable person would think that a decent insurance company would supply the lost value in order to return your home to its pre-damage state, they will do no such thing.
In case you weren’t aware, insurance companies are in the business to make money, and simply paying you the difference in property value is absorbing your financial loss, which isn’t making money! Their help will generally end at forcing you to repair your home (and usually their way, which isn’t necessarily the right way) and that’s it.
We need a change in legislation
The only way that we can be sure that insurance companies are responsible for maintaining the property value of their insureds is to change the current legislation to reflect it. If we do not change legislation, property owners will continue to see their property value decrease through no fault of their own, with no help from their insurance policies.
As it lies currently, the only party that wins is the insurance company; they get paid every month, yet when they’re really needed, they’re only required to do the bare minimum.
Therefore, the only way to successfully fix this problem is to rewrite how Florida insurance companies are obligated to support their insureds. This is not only the responsible thing to do but will also reduce the amount of money spent on lawsuits opened by insureds who are rightfully upset that they lose out at the end.
As the law currently states, I receive many emails from homeowners who are upset about the property value of their home reducing, and I, unfortunately, have to inform them that there is nothing that they can do to fix it.
