Condo Insurance

Here's some figures pertaining to homeowners and condo insurance in Florida with all of the hurricane problems.

Key Facts From Florida's 2004 Nightmare Hurricane Season

The Office of Insurance Regulation is projecting $20.9 billion in insured losses and 1.66 million claims from the 2004 hurricane season.

It is estimated by the Insurance Information Institute that one in every five Florida homes was impacted by a hurricane to some degree last year. State officials note that every public school in Florida has been closed at least one day this year because of a hurricane threat.

"This loss of premium income and capital was distributed among the insurers ($11.3 billion), the reinsurance market ($5.75 billion) and the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund," OIR noted in its hurricane task force report.

Here is a breakdown:

Hurricane Charley 481,372 claims and $8 billion in insured losses;
Hurricane Frances 547,325 claims and $5.1 billion in insured losses;
Hurricane Ivan 213,390 claims and $3.8 billion in insured losses;
Hurricane Jeanne 425,647 claims and $4 billion in losses.

An estimated 2.6 million of Florida's 8.1 million housing units were damaged by the hurricanes, with 35,000 destroyed, 649,000 sustaining major damage and 1,917,000 sustaining minor damage. (University of Florida, Bureau of Economic & Business Research, July 2005 report). Many homeowners did not sustain damage great enough to surpass their hurricane deductible, generally 2 percent of the amount of insurance, or $4,000 on a $200,000 house. This explains 1.7 million claims and 2.6 million housing units damaged.

The Office of Insurance Regulation estimates that Floridians absorbed $1.6 billion in out-of-pocket losses through their hurricane deductibles.

Total losses from the four hurricanes, including uninsured losses, are much greater than the $26 billion accounted through wind insurer payments, policyholder deductibles and National Flood Insurance Program payments. A ballpark guess is $50 billion to $75 billion.

This is taken from the Florida Insurance Council's website.