Tag Archives: sinkhole insurance coverage

Insurance Policies and Coverage Issues, Sinkhole News for Realtors

Sinkhole Damage Diminishes Home Values

What can I do about the lost value of my sinkhole home?

Unfortunately, insurance policies and Florida law do not allow for recovery of loss of value to your property. This is an extraneous consequence of having a sinkhole claim that insurance contracts and insurance companies do not take into consideration.

This is a cold business with a cold approach. Insurance companies do not take human factors such as diminution of value of the home, inability to find insurance again or time missed from work to be present for the numerous inspections into account. These are things that you will not recover under the contract. These are things that we hope juries pick up on and take into account when determining the damages to a homeowner.

Repairing a sinkhole home does significantly increase the value of the home but, is unlikely to recoup 100%. The good news is that as sinkholes become a more integral and accepted risks of homeownership in Florida, buyers seem to be a little less bothered by the sinkhole stigma as in years past. Keep in mind that there may be some additional coverages or damages that can be payable for over charged premiums or the cost to move out in some circumstances, so there may be a light at the end of the tunnel for certain homeowners.

Read our tips on filling out a sinkhole claim.

Have a burning question you’d like to ask about sinkholes? Let us know.

Insurance Policies and Coverage Issues

The Need for More Available Sinkhole Insurance Carriers in Florida

No home is immune to dropped coverage

The St. Petersburg Times published a story about a family in St Pete who literally built a fortress made of steel and concrete that could withstand almost any hurricane that hit Florida.

Despite that, State Farm dropped their coverage. Of course, State Farm claims it was solely due to a random reduction in the number of policies that they lost coverage. We get the question a lot: what happened to State Farm? I thought they left?

What happened to State Farm?

Well, in short, State Farm did threaten to leave Florida; however, as having State Farm in the state is better than having one less option for homeowners to insure their homes, the state of Florida later allowed State Farm the ability to raise premiums. In return, State Farm was allowed to drop a significant amount of its policies.

This means that State Farm is sticking around in Florida for the time being, though with fewer policies and higher premiums. While this may sound bad, it is, in the end, better than not having policies for our homes at all!

What does this say about Florida insurance?

Overall, State Farm adds a great deal of value to the Florida insurance market and tends to handle their claims better than most of the companies providing sinkhole coverage.

At the same time, while it is good that State Farm is staying, the state of Florida must do more to draw other, quality insurance companies into the state.  Several of the companies Charlie Crist bragged he brought into the State have already gone out of business, and some have even been sanctioned by the state for a lack of proper funding.

Therefore, one can only help that the state government will continue to seek out insurance companies who are willing to provide Florida homeowners with decent home insurance.