How to Prepare Before Hurricanes Threaten Florida

Florida home insurance and hurricanes

Hurricane season is quickly approaching and one of the most important things to do before a storm hits is to make sure your insurance coverage is up to date and your coverage levels are sufficient in the event your home is damaged by severe weather.

Regardless of whether you own a home or are renting, reviewing your insurance coverage is key and should be done before the start of hurricane season every year.

While homeowners need to verify that their coverage levels are appropriate for their home, renters mainly have to worry about the coverage levels for their personal property.

Both renters and homeowners should do a home inventory on an annual basis to ensure a claim is dealt with fairly and quickly if the worst happens.

“The first thing they need to do is take inventory. Take pictures of what you have,” Micheal Lane, an insurance agent in Florida said in a recent NBC WESH 2 article.

According to Lane, renters main concern should be their personal contents.

“They don’t have to worry about replacing a window or replacing the roof if there’s damaged from a hurricane. All a renter has to worry about are their contents — what they own that’s not attached to their apartment, or home or whatever their dwelling is,” Lane said in the WESH 2 article. “If you’re a homeowner versus a renter, you are responsible for 100% of your home inside and out.”

Homeowners should review their policies looking for exclusions, so they are aware of what is not covered and if necessary, putting coverage in place to fill those coverage gaps.

It is important to remember that homeowners doesn’t offer coverage for your vehicles, trees that are destroyed or damaged and flood damage.

“Things like your car. It’s not covered. Your yard is not covered. If a tree falls in your yard and is knocked down by a hurricane. There is no coverage for that,” Lane said in the WESH 2 article. “I get a lot of people that call and say ‘Hey, I need this tree removed and replaced.’ Well, your insurance company does not cover that. Your insurance policy doesn’t cover that. The purpose of insurance is to cover your dwelling, your home you live in.”

“Now if a tree falls and hits your house, it’s covered. But if it does not hit your house, your fence or anything else and just falls in your yard, there is no homeowners insurance coverage for that,” Lane continued.

One major gap in coverage is flood damage. A homeowners policy does not cover flood damage, you must have a flood insurance policy in place for flood damage to be covered.

Flood insurance typically comes with a waiting period of 30 days before coverage kicks in so it must be in place well before a storm is headed in your direction.

In addition, most insurers will not allow homeowners to make changes to their policy or add coverages once a storm has been named.

“There can be no changes effective on your policy. You can’t add coverage. You can’t add a new policy. You can’t decrease coverage. You have to wait until after the storm,” Lane said in the WESH 2 article.
“And an active season like this is going to be storms back-to-back-to-back-to-back. So, there could possibly be no changes to your policy until after hurricane season is over. I would recommend looking at it now,” Wesh continued.

If your home is severely damaged or destroyed and you cannot live there while it is being repaired or rebuilt, loss of use coverage will help cover some of your additional expenses while you are out of your home.

“It’s called loss of use coverage. And it’s typically 10% of the entire coverage of your home. Now that’s going to take care of hotel, food, transportation, or any money that you spend while you’re outside of your house, and you can’t occupy it,” Lane said in the WESH 2 article.