There is a hurricane rider on my boat insurance policy that says if my boat gets damaged at all during a named storm I am SOL. I know the reason they have that is because of all of the damage down here when Ike came thru here 4 years ago.

Is that rider just down here or is that rider everywhere?

Looking at the damage on the east coast brings back the bad reminder of what we went thru 4 years ago. I could not believe the damage one storm could do.

ive heard of some that state once a storm becomes such that they name it, your "flood" insurance kicks in (if you got it). their way of saying "this is beyond what your paying for and what we are insuring against"

I have a segment in my policy that's called named storm insurance.

Ummmm.....yes and no.

Wind Storm insurance is a separate endorsement for any named storm for boat or home insurance. So if your boat/home get trashed by a tornado (technically a wind storm but not named of course) then your home will be covered. Flood Insurance covers rising water only. So if a hurricance brings a storm surge with it (like Sandy) then Flood will pay but if the hurricane just levels your house (no water like Hurricane Andrew 1992) then Wind Storm covers it.

After FL had 2 hurricanes in 38 days in 2004 (Frances and Jean) boat insurers got the idea to exclude Wind Storm and charge up and above for that endorsement just like the home insurers did after Andrew.

The other game they are playing is the two tier deductible, a set $5000 for events and then a 3% of the gross damage for wind storm. So in a 500K policy if you have a small kitchen fire and the damage is 50K then you pay your 2500 or 5K deductible but in a 300K hurricane claim you pay the same 5K then 3% of the value of the policy (an additional $15,000 due to the 3% clause). So in a 300K damage case you pay for the first 20K out of pocket.

This is why some oceanfront mansions go uninsured. Also in FL they love to teardown 20 year old homes and build new so if a house did get big damage they would probably bulldoze it and build new anyway. Policy premium is insane, then the deductible is ridiculous so short of a hurricane like Sandy what would the homeowner end up paying for nothing? My Uncle lives in a ridiculous home in Harbour Beach (Ft Lauderdale near Pier 66). Homeowners insurance is 40K a year and even after 3 hurricanes has never had a claim (7 years now). So even paying 280K in premiums he still has gotten not $1 in benefits. But then again in that same period he spent over 900K in property taxes and didn't get any of that money back either!

From when I was in Florida you needed flood insurance, home insurance and windstorm insurance all at the same time if you wanted what most people consider "full" coverage. If you lived within 5 miles of coastline you would be bent over and done hard..
My insurance and property taxes alone were more than i pay for my mortgate now ....

Still that way, if you can find someone left to insure you, everybody is pulling out of the state, those that are left just keep raising rates every year.

Funny story, I bought a condo on the ICW about 8 yrs ago, bank tried to force me to have flood insurance due to being east of the ICW, threatened to pull my loan, force insure me, whatever they could think of to make me have it- funny part- its 133 feet up from the ground on the 12th floor! In the end, I had to hire one of their inspectors for $400 to come out, go up to my condo, and look out the window to "verify" I should be ok from flooding. Insurance is all a scam, their business model is to rape the client for as much money as they can, then come up with every excuse in the world why they dont have to pay.

I was lucky to sell my property there at the height of the real estate insanity 7 years ago and get the hell out of dodge.
Now I live on the water for 1/10 the cost and can actually afford to go have fun in Miami any time i want.
Great place to visit but not to live it, at least not any more..
:-)