The skyrocketing cost of insurance premiums in Florida is leading residents to drop their insurance, consider selling their home, and even move out of the state, according to recent reports.

For years now, the sunny, vibrant state has been a magnetic destination for many Americans—a phenomenon which has been driving up demand for housing, especially during the pandemic, as well as home prices.

But while Florida was the number one state in the country that people moved to in 2022, it was also the one with the highest number of residents wanting to relocate, according to a SelfStorage.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s a good thing their Republican Leaders are working hard to help them with this issue.

    • spacecadet@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Doesn’t matter to me, they think I live in a third world communist hell hole so they won’t move where I live anyway. Never thought I would say this but… thank you Fox News!

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    They were laughing at Californians when it was happening to us (very very recently) thinking that it was the result of “liberal policymaking”.

    Well, how does it feel, Florida? Are you ready to put aside our differences and go after our real common enemy, the for-profit insurance industry and climate deniers? Because I promise you, this is only going to get worse unless we force them to change things.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        He probably does think that. He could spin rising premiums as speculation based on climate change belief.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Watch: More legislation on insurance prices in the state.

          Or, they could pull a North Carolina and outlaw any discussion of sea level rise.

          • flerp@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            He can’t beat big business. If he tries it will ruin him even more than he is already ruined. Give him all the ideas.

    • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Insurers aren’t really to blame here. Florida is a fundamentally high-risk place to build and live now, and will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future due to climate change. Even a non-profit insurer would need to price Florida insurance at a premium, lest its funds be exhausted when the inevitable category-6 hurricane hits the state.

      Arguably the ones most to blame (after the fossil fuel industry, for putting us in this position in the first place of course) is corrupt politicians and developers who allow such shoddy construction in the state in the first place.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        We don’t just allow construction in risky places, we subsidize it. If you’re an owner or developer and you wanna put your own money at risk by building in risky places, you should be allowed to do that. Just don’t expect me to pay for it through taxes and FEMA flood insurance.

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Maybe it’s not quite comparable to the situation in California, now that I think about it. Florida has always been in the path of devastating hurricanes for as long as I can remember. There is a degree of assumed risk living there. In California, these massive wildfires almost never happened and now suddenly it happens every year without fail no matter how hard we try to contain them. I live in an area that has never been hit by a wildfire, but because California as a whole has been hit so hard so many times recently, rates get raised to untenable levels and State Farm won’t even write you a policy. It’s completely mad.

        Like, I get it, it’s not the insurance company’s fault that we live in the path of predictable destruction, but there has to be a better solution than “move somewhere else if you don’t like it”. I wonder if we can learn something from studying the insurance models of other countries that are prone to disaster (Island nations in Asia that are frequently hit by typhoons, for example) and adapting that to how policies are tailored here?

      • Blackhole@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        The category of hurricane isn’t the problem, it’s the frequency. 5 category 2s are way worse than 1 cat 4 or 5, in terms of economic cost, typically.

        • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I was using cat6 as a stand-in for “all the bad stuff”. There’s never been a category 6 hurricane before.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Free hand of the market is giving them an invisible bitchslap.

      Soon they’ll be “free” from insurance.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Good. Subsidizing risky behavior, as we do with some kinds of disaster insurance, encourages risky behavior. Rising insurance costs are the market telling people to stop living in certain places. We’d do well to listen and stop living in places like Florida so much.

    • willis936@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honestly I’m on team insurance in these cases. The US is filthy rich and we have tons of highly habitable land. Why are we wasting resources subsidizing some people choosing to live in comfortable, risky locations?

      For those stuck in poverty: that does suck but I consider that an independent issue.

    • superguy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Are you ready to put aside our differences and go after our real common enemy, the for-profit insurance industry and climate deniers?

      Nah. Republicans never admit when they are wrong.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Sell their homes to who? Is this like a NFT, always a bigger fool, kind of thing?

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      To landlords, who will charge arbitrarily high rent, secure in the knowledge that they aren’t in a free market due to inelasticity of demand (people can’t do without shelter) and supply (there are finite places to live). That will let them pay the insurance premiums homeowners can’t afford.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I keep trying to convince s few buddies we should pool our money together and get into RVs. Have a lot with RVs for rent. Move them from lot to lot based on needs. Park them outside business that don’t pay well but have a lot of workers.

        • quindraco@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I’ve heard worse business proposals, for sure. But be careful about identifying as a landlord (even a prospective one) in a place like this!

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            Not actually going to own land and I am certainly not a lord. I am thinking more like I own RVs, rent them, and work with my renters to find provide parking and utilities.

            • quindraco@lemm.ee
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              Landlords aren’t defined by literally owning land or literally being lords. If you own living space you rent out, you’re a landlord, even if your apartments are mobile (including both RVs and houseboats).

              But listen, I support you and your choices. This is not me being critical. We’re just having this conversation in a space where it’s much more in vogue to hate anyone who owns living space they rent out.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Republicans who want to jerk off to DeSantis and let some racial slurs fly without social opprobrium.

      That’s who has been moving there since 2020 or so.

      • Vanon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Some people see Florida as America’s floppy, deformed penis. Others see it more as a nauseating dookie emerging from the south. Scientists are still studying the area to find the causes of the mass psychosis, but urge all healthy adults to avoid the region and its inhabitants.

    • rchive@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Everything has a buyer at some price. These people will just have to sell at a loss, probably.

  • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s interesting to me that insurance companies are becoming the chief drivers of the preparation for climate change: “Wanna build a house in the woods? On a sandbar? GTFO. Use your own money.”

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      Since humans invented math and fossil fuels, this moment was inevitable. The writing has been on the wall in Florida for ten years.

      I forgot the actual statistics, but it’s something crazy. Like Florida constitutes 8% of the country’s homeowners insurance policies, but 80% of all homeowners insurance litigation. Florida real estate is a ponzi scheme now.

      They’ve got miles and miles and miles of roads in Florida lined with 10-million dollar, beachfront houses, all of which will sooner than later be buried under 25 ft of seaweed for the next thousand years. The question is who will be left holding the bag on all that risk?

      I’m certain the Republicans in the Florida legislature will let the insurance companies off of the hook before too long here, and will leave working people holding a bunch of worthless real estate, just waiting for climate catastrophe to wipe everything away.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      Because they are grounded in the real world. If your goal is to make money finding out how to lower your costs is a good way to do it. If your goal is to win elections telling people what they want to hear is a good way to do it. They know that this is happening and it is going to get worse.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It won’t be long, and in Florida the cost for the mortgage will be neglectable in comparison to the costs of insurance.

    The big downside will be that Floridians will move out of Florida and spread elsewhere. Maybe it is time for Georgia and Alabama to invest in a massive fence?

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Whatever it takes to finally get people to realize that living in a disaster zone is a terrible idea.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Insurance typically works off historical data to evaluate risk from my understanding, and having something as disastrous as the Miami beach condo collapse bodes a bad sign for insurance companies, especially given the terrible and absolutely incompetent rescue effort during the aftermath.

    By the way, I’m shocked at how quickly the Miami condo collapse left the news cycle.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    lol @ all the people who fled the northeast because “Florida is cheap…”

    Even the second place finisher of the Carolinas has gotten too expensive.

    • Rockyrikoko@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      They didn’t finish the sentence

      …according to a SelfStorage service clerk working in Tampa /S

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So much for DeathSantis utopia. Go back to Florida and don’t bring your Nazi politics to my state.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemm.ee
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      40% of voting Floridians voted against DeSantis, Florida is also the state with the third highest Jewish population, I’m fairly certain that nowhere near all of Florida has “Nazi” politics.

      Maybe try not sounding like an ignorant by generalizing the third most populated state, which is also just as mixed as the other three most populated states. You’re just sounding like those idiots that bitch about how California is all “liberal” while ignoring the conservative North Cali and all of the Neo-Con enclaves and Nazis in between.

      Sure the Florida GOP are pretty much Nazi-lite, but there’s a shitload of Florida citizens who are not them and completely disagree with them and are doing what they can to push back against them.

  • Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Would be sick if we could pull a Looney Tunes and saw the fucking thing off from the rest of us. Let it float away and sink into the Atlantic.

  • LongPigFlavor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Floridian here. My mom currently has Citizenship Insurance. Her rates will increase by about 11.5% by the end of the year.