Residents of Florida’s manufactured and mobile homes are grappling with the double blow of canceled policies and soaring premiums for homeowners insurance.
Therese Burch, a resident of Naples, shared her frustration after witnessing her insurance costs skyrocket. “My insurance went from $2,300, and the lowest bid that I got was $6,000,” Burch revealed.
Living in a manufactured home, Burch was compelled to search for alternatives after her insurer terminated her policy. Her best recourse, she found, was to turn to Citizens Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort. However, this option came with a mandatory requirement to purchase flood insurance, adding to her financial burden.
“We were just looking to insure our home the same as it was before for around $60,000,” Burch expressed, reflecting the struggle many homeowners face in securing affordable coverage.
Robert Norberg of Arden Insurance shed light on the challenging landscape for mobile and manufactured home insurers. “A lot of companies are leaving. Anybody that’s still remaining in the market space has very strict guidelines,” Norberg explained. “Most of them we see are going to Citizens. We try the admitted companies, but it just doesn’t fit.”
Citizens Insurance has been actively seeking to reduce its policy numbers in Florida, amidst concerns of being overly exposed in the event of a major storm. One approach has been to encourage private insurers to make take-out offers to policyholders.
For homeowners, particularly those without mortgages, another option might be to forgo wind coverage, although it necessitates disciplined financial planning to save money. “Most of the clients I talk to, if they still have a mortgage, you’ve got to pay what you got to pay,” Norberg remarked. “If they don’t, which a lot of them do not, we can streamline the policy a little bit by taking off the wind [coverage] maybe, giving them property and liability only.”
