Home Insurance Buyers Guide, LLC

Paige St. John gives us an update on thousands of 2004 and 2005 hurricane claims still open against Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

Enough said.

There are still very good reasons why you should do everything in your power to find private Florida homeowners insurance.

If you want to increase your chances of finding private homeowners insurance in a very difficult market, check out the Home Insurance Buyers Guide at homeinsurancebuyers.org

Its unacceptable that the options for finding private, Florida home insurance are so limited. Visit our Getting Involved section to learn more about what you can do to send your legislators a clear message during the Florida homeowners insurance crisis.

Finding homeowners insurance in Florida should not be so difficult. Let your legislators know how you feel!

More Rate Cuts Ahead – Herald Tribune May 30, 2007

John Hielsher reminds us that June 1st is not just the start of hurricane season, but also the day that Florida Home Insurance rate reductions are supposed to begin providing relief.

So far the actual savings have been a huge disappointment. For many Florida homeowners, the 2007 Emergency Legislation is simply delivering a miniscule increase on the heels of massive increases granted to insurance companies during 2006.

If June 1st is not bringing much relief to Florida homeowner insurance consumers, we’re not holding our breath for the “true-up” adjustments that need to be passed on to homeowners by September 30th.

If you are fed up with the high cost of homeowner insurance in Florida get involved with the crisis and let your legislators know how you feel.

After you’ve done that, use the Home Insurance Buyers Guide to shop your policy. The best way to let your insurance company know how you feel about high rates is to shop your policy every year.

Check out the Home Insurance Buyers Guide

You will be glad you did!

Hurricane mitigation bill off to Crist – Naples News May 4, 2007

Michael Peltier covers a bill being sent to Governor Charlie Crist that would offer free home inspections and matching grants for those living in high risk coastal areas of Florida. So far the My Safe Florida Home program has been little more than an “inspection program” that has not done much to reduce the cost of homeowners insurance in Florida. That’s because the legislature eliminated most of the matching grants. So inspectors are making a ton of money doing inspections but the homes are not being hurricane hardened the way they should be because homeowners don’t have the money to make the upgrades.

During the Florida Homeowners Insurance Crisis, many things have still not been addressed. One of them is the fact that when you have an inspection done on your home to evaluate your hurricane mitigation discounts, each company requires the inspection information to be put on their form – instead of a standard form that would be accepted by all carriers. At a time when there has never been more confusion about high insurance rates and when insurance agents are spending a huge amount of time trying to service their customer base, a huge amount of time is being wasted transferring the “exact” same information from one insurance company’s form to another company’s form. And while these wasteful steps are taking place, you still have to pay the insurance premiums at the higher rates until this paperwork is processed.

Huge time wasters like this need to go away during the Florida Homeowners Insurance Crisis. We don’t have time for them. Get involved with the crisis and let your legislators know how you feel!

Find out more about companies that are still writing private homeowners insurance in Florida and use the Home Insurance Buyers Guide to put your Florida homeowners insurance out to bid!

United insurance refunds on tap – Orlando Sentinel June 16, 2007

Anika Myers Palm of the Orlando Sentinel covers insurance refunds being issued by the United Property and Casualty Insurance Company.

Millions of dollars in refunds must be refunded to its policyholders because the company moved forward with an 83 percent rate increase and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation ultimately approved about a 55 percent rate hike. United Property and Casualty was simply following the “use and file” practice that was permitted by law prior to the 2007 Emergency Legislation.

“Use and file” is something that starts off with the best intentions. Most people don’t know that State Insurance Regulators put a lot of effort into trying to get new private insurers to enter the Florida homeowners insurance market. In their efforts to attract new private insurance companies, the ability to implement a rate increase and have it approved at a later date (Use and file) is something that any state insurance commission would point to as a sign to insurance companies that the state is “business friendly” and is easy to do business with. And who could blame them for doing this, given the large number of private insurance companies that have left the state.

In a world without the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, “use and file” probably worked fine. Maybe a 16% increase would be adjusted to 14% and so on. However, with our current Florida Insurance Crisis, the magnitude of the increases that many companies put through using this provision is significant and doesn’t sit right with the public. And, the history of “use and file” in Florida has been that the unapproved increases put in place by the insurance companies have been rarely overturned by the state regulators after being reviewed.

Thankfully, this practice of “Use and file” is now prohibited as a result of the 2007 Emergency Legislative Session and a lot of hard work by the Consumer Insurance Coalition.

Find out how the Home Insurance Buyers Guide can save you a ton of money on private Florida homeowners insurance.

Get involved with the crisis and let your legislators know how you feel!

It’s been very well documented that most of the major Florida homeowner insurance companies are continuing to shed policies in the State of Florida. Allstate, Nationwide, and State Farm Florida are leading the way out of the state, but they have plenty of company.

As this trend continues, Floridians are left with medium and small size companies to consider for their Florida homeowner insurance needs.

While finding a less expensive private Florida home insurance company can save you thousands of dollars, it has to be done with great care. After all, saving a lot of money on your insurance isn’t going to matter if your Florida home insurance company fails during the next major hurricane.

And remember, if you have to file a Florida home insurance claim you’re going to need the claim settled quickly. Who knows what you might be dealing with – a roof leak, broken windows, or even mold.

If your Florida homeowners insurance company is an admitted, licensed, carrier in the State of Florida and it fails, the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) will step in to make you whole, as it is doing for homeowner claims in the Poe liquidation. However, there are limits to how much you will recover through FIGA and there will almost certaintly be delays.

With all of that said, why not try to avoid this in the first place, by checking on the financial ratings of your Florida insurance company before you buy a new Florida homeowners insurance policy.

Florida insurance ratings are letter grades assigned by the rating services to the Florida homeowners insurance companies.  At Home Insurance Buyers Guide, we like A.M. Best because they have been doing this for a very long time. We also like Demotech because their ratings have been effective in assessing medium to smaller size regional insurance companies similar to those we now have in Florida.

Insurance company ratings Florida give you added assurance that you’ll get paid if you have to file a claim.  Florida homeowners insurance ratings take into consideration the following characteristics of your insurance company:

Cash liquidity levels

Extent to which reinsurance has been used to further spread the risk of loss

The reliability of financial reporting.

But enough technical talk. In plain English, these Florida insurance company ratings have demonstrated over time that their ratings are very accurate at predicting survival and failure rates among Florida home insurance companies.

Said another way, companies with very high Florida home insurance ratings have rarely failed, while other companies with very low Florida insurance ratings have indeed failed at much higher rates. In short these ratings matter.

So before you celebrate your new, cheaper insurance policy, check out the Florida insurance company ratings for your Florida home insurance company.

Once you’ve checked your Florida homeowners insurance company ratings you need to do more. Why? Because even with decent ratings from the major rating services, Florida homeowner insurance companies can still fail. That’s why at the Home Insurance Buyers Guide, we’ve taken Florida homeowners insurance ratings to the next level.

Our Buyers Guide Rating gives each insurance company in our guide at rating on a scale from “1-10″. This rating allows you to look at each company still writing new business in your county and decide which ones you would like to obtain a quote from. We’ve done all the research on each company so you don’t have to.

Our Buyers Guide Rating takes the guesswork out of selecting the right Florida home insurance company.

When you use The Home Insurance Buyers Guide, you’ll see very quickly why we are changing the way homeowners shop for insurance.

You can save money by changing insurer, coverage for your home – Sun Sentinel June 4, 2007

Kathy Bushouse of the Sun-Sentinel has captured in one story, all of the things that Florida homeowners should be doing to save money on their Florida home insurance:

Changing deductibles

Making sure you are getting all of the hurricane mitigation discounts you are entitled to.

And, most importantly, shopping around for coverage.

If your agent is telling you that you have to go into Citizens Property Insurance Corporation or a very high priced private carrier, its time for you to take control of your own situation by aggressively shopping around with more than one agent. Read more about why using your Florida home insurance agent is not enough!

But you have to be careful. As Kathy Bushouse points out in this article, many of the companies that are still accepting new business are recently formed companies. You have to pay attention to things like their financial ratings, the percentage discounts they give for hurricane mitigation discounts, along with their customer service and complaint history.

If you have decided enough is enough, and want to shop your policy, you should check out The Home Insurance Buyers Guide.

When you use the Home Insurance Buyers Guide to shop for your Florida homeowner insurance, you change the playing field dramatically in your favor:

First, you start by finding out exactly who is writing new homeowner insurance business in Florida - Private admitted carriers that are regulated by the Florida Office of Insurane Regulation – Not surplus insurance companies with a limited amount of oversight and regulation.

In the Buyers Guide you won’t find insurance companies who claim they are writing new business but in reality are only writing policies for agents and their relatives as a special favor. We can help you find companies like Northern Capital Insurance Company – a company that saved the homeowners in the Sun Sentinel article thousands of dollars!

If you wanted to research a company’s history, track record, customer service history, and financial stability, you could do it yourself. But you would have to visit a lot of websites. We’ve eliminated that for you by developing a Buyers Guide Rating that rates each company on a scale of 1-10 and takes into consideration all of the publicly available information about each insurance company.

When you enter our database, you start by searching for company’s accepting new business in your county. You can sort this list either alphabetically or by the Buyers Guide rating.

We tell you what kind of underwriting guidelines the company may have – things like the age of the home, type of home construction, and whether their coverage includes screenhouses and sinkholes!

Once you’ve decided which companies you are interested in, we provide convenient ways for you to find out who the agents are that represent them. You decide which agents you want to contact in order to obtain coverage with that company.

Getting quotes from multiple agents creates a competitive situation that puts you in the drivers seat.

When you start with the companies first and then find agents who can help you, your chances of finding affordable, private insurance improve dramatically!

Kathy Bushouse has hit the nail on the head with this article. She has shared with all Floridians exactly what they need to do to find affordable, private insurance. Take action on Kathy’s recommendations by purchasing The Home Insurance Buyers Guide.

When you do, you’ll see why we are changing the way homeowners shop for insurance!

Insurance upgrades tough to identify – The state touted sweeping industry change, but for many, it all looks the same. – St. Petersburg Times May 27, 2007

Tom Zucco is one of the reporters in the media smart enough to figure out that the 2007 Emergency Legislation has accomplished little for Florida Homeowners.

Florida homeowner insurance rates are as high as they’ve ever been, companies continue to drop policies, and the mitigation discounts to make our homes more hurricane proof are producing meaningless discounts. Its time for all Floridians to get involved with the crisis and let your legislators know how you feel!

The mitigation discounts have been a significant source of frustration for me. I paid an inspector $150.00 to inspect my home and he produced an inspection report which identified the features on my house that qualified for discounts. The problem I have with the system is that each insurance company makes the inspector fill out the inspection results on their own form. They won’t accept a standard form or the form from another insurance company, even if the information on it is exactly the same.

The state should be mandating that all insurance companies have to accept the same form.

Because there are multiple mitigation discount forms in use, it took me almost 5 months to get my discount. Just another way insurance companies use the float, and drag out the use of our cash.

But back to the crisis.

Even if your company does not bring their rates down to where they should be, if you take a little time to find out “what insurance companies don’t want you to know”, you can still save thousands on your Florida homeowners insurance.

If you are still with Allstate Floridian Indemnity Insurance Company, Nationwide Insurance Company of Florida, and State Farm Florida Insurance Company and getting punished by their higher rates, find out why there are other Florida home insurance companies available to you that can save you thousands!

If the savings you were expecting are not materializing, learn more about the Home Insurance Buyers Guide and put your Florida home insurance policy out to bid!

Windstorm rate cuts come up short – Miami Herald April 20, 2007

Beatrice Garcia is one of the first in the news media to recognize and report on the fact that the promised Florida homeowner insurance rate cuts are coming up short – especially when the massive increases from last year are taken into consideration.

Chris Kowalczyk from the consumer group – Having Affordable Coverage, is right on target when he says that the 14% rate decrease being projected by Citizens Property Insurance Corporation isn’t meaningful rate relief.

The entire process of setting insurance rates and maintaining a meaningful history of rate increases needs a lot more work. The Florida homeowner should be provided with a schedule of rate increase by year by insurance company so that there is clear visibility as to how meaningful these rate cuts really are – but then again, we already know that these cuts are a “drop in the bucket” compared to last year’s increases.

Get involved with the Florida homeowners insurance crisis and let your legislators know how you feel.

If you’re fed up with high homeowner insurance rates in Florida and are mad enough to shop your policy get The Home Insurance Buyers Guide and put your Florida home insurance policy out to bid!

In Broward, cuts are small compared to rate hikes – Sun-Sentinel May 6, 2007

Kathy Bushouse provides an analysis of the initial impact of the 2007 Homeowners Insurance Emergency Legislation on Florida homeowner insurance rates in Broward County.

The results are not impressive.

Very few companies are coming close to the 24% statewide average rate cuts anticipated by state officials. And on the heels of the massive increases granted during 2006, the legislation has produced in the words of Bob Milligan – Florida’s insurance consumer advocate, “a decrease in the increase”

The Florida Homeowners Insurance crisis is far from over. In fact it’s just beginning………………………

You need to get involved with the Florida Homeowners Insurance Crisis and let your legislators know how you feel!

If you are disappointed in the results of the 2007 emergency legislative session and think that your homeowners insurance is still to high, get The Home Insurance Buyers Guide and give your overpriced company the boot!

5-Year Hurricane Modeling System for Insurance Rates is on hold – Tampa Tribune 5/16/07

Kevin Begos updates us on the decision made to scrap a software model that would have raised Florida homeowners insurance rates even higher.

When are these models going to factor in the billions of dollars in reconstruction that have been rebuilt to a much higher hurricane standard? The building code is not perfect, but no one in Florida is paying attention to the fact that the infrastructure is a lot stronger. In addition, multiple hurricanes have taken out huge numbers of trees and projectiles that caused enormous damage during the storms of 2004 and 2005. And everything that is rebuilt, has to comply with the current building codes.

The hurricane simulators are ignoring a simple question – even if their models are correct about the path of future hurricanes, the damage will not be as significant.

So lighten up and give us a break on insurance rates.

If your Florida home insurance company is overcharging you, get The Home Insurance Buyers Guide. Use the Buyers Guide to save thousands on homeowners insurance in Florida.