florida helps you compare homeowner insurance rates
tommyOne of life’s biggest pains in the ass is shopping for insurance. Personally, I dislike the entire concept. The entire industry is simply legalized gambling. But even besides that, it seems that even if insurers are quick to take your money in premiums, they look for every excuse not to pay a claim. However, regardless of how you feel, most of us need insurance of some kind.
Today the State of Florida unveiled a new tool to make shopping for homeowners insurance a bit easier - Compare Homeowner’s Insurance Rates. From Governor Crist:
Many Florida homeowners are finding it difficult and frustrating to compare the cost of homeowners insurance. This site is intended as a starting point to help you compare rates and to demonstrate the importance of shopping around for the best policy to provide the coverage and terms you need to protect your home.
On this site you will find approved rates from a sampling of insurance companies for a typical Florida home. The typical rates quoted here are not guaranteed rates, but are only intended to demonstrate that rates vary significantly from company to company. Please contact the insurance companies or agents of your choice to obtain a quote for your home.
Simply go to www.shopandcomparerates.com, click the “compare” button on the bottom, and then choose your county. That brings up a list of insurance companies and the amount they charge for a typical home (average $150,000 concrete block home with a $500 non-hurricane deductible, a 2 percent hurricane deductible, no claims, and no wind mitigation discounts). The companies are listed from lowest price to highest - those highlighted in yellow have already written policies in the past quarter, the others have filed to write policies.
Of course, other factors are also taken into consideration, so these numbers are not hard and fast. And as we all know, there is a bit more to buying insurance than just going with the lowest price, anyway. Some companies have better service, some offer quicker claim payouts, etc. Remember that this new website is just one tool available to you, but it really seems this may be a good starting point for finding homeowners’ insurance in Florida.
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June 26th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
“starting point” is right. Most of the companies that I contacted from the list are not accepting new policies at all.
Secondly, it takes additional research to find out if the company is stable!
the search goes on….
June 27th, 2007 at 9:34 am
[...] yesterday the State of Florida announced the website to help with shopping for homeowners’ insurance. Not so fast, say some folks: several insurers listed as writing cheaper policies in the Tampa Bay [...]
June 27th, 2007 at 10:58 am
GOT a quote from royal palm on tues. agent called me on wed. to tell me there was a rate increase, it doubled!!!
October 14th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Don’t waste your time with the State Site.
Check out the Home Insurance Buyers Guide at:
http://www.homeinsurancebuyers.org
The Buyers Guide tells you who is writing in your county and it rates each company on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best - so you don’t have to do any additional research.
Good luck!