When a hurricane strikes, it’s comforting to know that your property is insured. It’s equally assuring to have an understanding of simply how your coverage works. All through Florida and the complete Gulf Coast, percentage-based hurricane deductibles turned the usual following the intensely lively 2004-2005 storm seasons.
The proportion of the insurable worth of your property deductible is named a hurricane deductible (it will also be a Wind & Hail Deductible relying on the coverage) and it’s one thing that each one Florida householders ought to perceive.
What Is a Hurricane Deductible?
Nearly each insurance coverage coverage has a deductible—the portion of your declare that you’re chargeable for paying out of pocket earlier than your insurance coverage protection will kick in.
Right here in Florida, most owners’ insurance policies have a minimum of two deductibles, that are often completely different quantities:
- A hurricane deductible for hurricane claims
- An All Different Perils (AOP) deductible for no matter else your coverage covers.
Your hurricane deductible can generally be a flat greenback quantity, however extra typically, it’s a proportion of your dwelling protection, similar to 2, 5, or 10%.
Why Do I Have Two Deductibles?
Hurricane deductibles had been first launched after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992 and have become extra frequent in 2004 and 2005 after storms like Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Katrina.
Having two deductibles was seen as a strategy to reduce down on elevating house insurance coverage charges and to assist make sure that insurers might pay claims and stay afloat amidst increasingly more pure disasters. Some insurance policies have wind/hail deductibles that apply for injury brought on by windstorm (whether or not a hurricane or simply a day thunderstorm) or hail. They’re most frequently percentage-based similar to hurricane/named storm deductibles.
How Do Hurricane Deductibles Work?
As is typical with insurance coverage, there are guidelines about the best way to use your hurricane deductible. For instance, the injury would wish to happen in a selected time frame to be thought of “hurricane injury.”
The clock begins ticking when a hurricane warning is issued for any a part of Florida by the Nationwide Hurricane Heart of the Nationwide Climate Service and ends 72 hours after the final hurricane watch/warning is terminated. These pointers nonetheless apply, even when the hurricane is downgraded to a tropical storm.
In Florida, your hurricane deductible applies to any and all storms that happen in the identical calendar yr, so long as you might be insured with the identical insurance coverage firm (or group of firms).
Because of this in a a number of storm season, there may be solely ONE hurricane deductible utilized. Not like your all different perils deductible (AOP), the hurricane deductible doesn’t reset occasion by occasion.
What Hurricane Insurance coverage Do I Want?
Hurricane protection is usually lined underneath most sorts of house insurance coverage insurance policies, however when hurricane season hits, normal householders insurance coverage isn’t all the time sufficient.
For instance, whereas most house insurance coverage insurance policies cowl water injury, they don’t cowl flood injury. In order for you protection for rising flood waters and storm surge (and it’s best to!), you’ll must buy a coverage by way of the Nationwide Flood Insurance coverage Program.
The excellent news is that flood insurance coverage tends to be extraordinarily reasonably priced, particularly when you think about the added peace of thoughts it should carry you!
Conclusion
Shopping for sandbags and bottled water shouldn’t be the one issues in your hurricane preparedness guidelines.
You must also be sure to have sufficient on-hand to pay in your hurricane deductible within the occasion of a catastrophe. (To seek out out what your hurricane deductible is, test the Declarations web page of your householders insurance coverage coverage or contact your native unbiased insurance coverage agent.)
Your hurricane deductible could also be increased than your AOP, however that doesn’t imply you might be caught paying by way of the nostril for respectable protection. As an unbiased insurance coverage company, Harry Levine Insurance coverage is ready to collect quotes from all kinds of reliable insurers. This enables us to construct custom-made protection that works finest in your price range and—most significantly—your wants.
Contact us right now for a free quote!
