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Everyone thinks of flooding in Florida, but the real risk is wind. When a hurricane hits, a relatively small area is subject to flooding. But huge swaths of t
by maweaver 3y ago
Everyone thinks of flooding in Florida, but the real risk is wind. When a hurricane hits, a relatively small area is subject to flooding. But huge swaths of the state are hit with high sustained winds. If the winds compromise the roof and rain gets into the house, you're looking at a huge amount of damage to the home.
For that reason, insurers are very strict about roof age. Roofs are very expensive to replace ($15-$20k+), so it becomes a fight between homeowners trying to save money with a roof that works just fine (in their mind at least) and an insurance company that keeps raising rates or threatening to drop if they don't replace it.
Enter roofing contractors. In Florida you can assign your benefits to them and they gain the ability to sue on your behalf. So they go to desperate homeowners and offer to find a reason for roof replacement that homeowners insurance will cover, and sue the insurance company if they refuse. To give you an idea of the scope of this, 79% of insurance lawsuits come from Florida.
Although other factors do exist, this is a large part of the reason insurance is so expensive here even for those not in a flood-prone area.
- paulddraper 3y agoAnd this might be obvious, but the failure mode is the wind dislodging/damaging a sufficient number of shingles and rainwater soaking/flooding the house. Very destructive.
- tadfisher 3y agoMoney might be better spent on replacing the pitched roof entirely in that case. Roof angle and asphalt shingles don't make a lot of sense in hurricane winds.
- paulddraper 3y agoTile roofs are better, but much more expensive. Especially for a lot of folks living on fixed incomes.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoIan's flooding zone was pretty populated. And it was tracking for a direct hit on Tampa for awhile (except for the Euro model, which was right all along), which would have been quite a flooding disaster. You are right about the roofing issue though, like said below even a damaged roof can destroy your house. Honestly I forgot about this because flooding was such a thing for some acquaintances.
- howard941 3y ago> In Florida you can assign your benefits to them and they gain the ability to sue on your behalf. Not anymore. The legislature took this away at their last special session. They also took away attorneys fees when an insured sues and wins against his insurer.