I know Florida insurance is crazy but the scare tactics are nuts… The news has been stating that home insurance in FL will double or triple in price making living here unaffordable… Well… my insurance agent has found me a terrific insurer that higher in price compared to 5 years ago is pretty decent and half of what my previous insurer wanted before they non-renewed me… I got the new policy last year and the company has renewed at pretty much the same price… On auto though, it keeps going up and up even after I changed… Costs me now almost double my home to insure my 4 year old car … I do have good insurance including uninsured motorist which is sky high… Even raising deductible didn’t really do much per normal Clark rules…
Maybe car insurance prices keep going up because there are many more claims against vehicles than houses. I have never put in a claim against my home insurance but have had multiple vehicle accidents, whether I was at fault or not.
More and more people are driving without insurance. When an accident happens, the person with insurance gets stuck paying the bill for something that is not their fault. The states need to crack down on the uninsured drivers.
In North Carolina it’s hard to drive without insurance. Here’s what I mean.
To register your car you first have to get an insurance policy. Then you can get your plates. You then have a short time to get your state inspection.
If you cancel your insurance policy they contact the state DMV which cancels your registration/plate. You are instantly illegal. You can not renew your registration without first getting your inspection done. If you send in your reg renewal with out the inspection they will not renew. The NC system makes it very hard to “skip” insurance or inspections.
You are correct about the procedures in North Carolina. I know that the local sheriff will remove the plates from a vehicle, if they can, when insurance has been cancelled.
I lived in North Carolina for many years, and I know there are many drivers finding their way around those procedures if they know they do not have insurance coverage. I have moved away from North Carolina, and I am sure those efforts to dodge insurance have become more sophisticated since insurance has become much more expensive.
There are good sources of information online as to why both types of insurance are going up.
Florida and many parts of the country are only going to get worse. State Farm lost over 13 billion in a recent two year period due to catastrophes. It is difficult for insurers to calculate and plan for such risk. Many insurers in Florida especially have left the state or gone bankrupt and that is happening around the country. Fires out west and tornadoes. Flooding around the country although that is a government backed insurance coverage.
I’m not sure that we won’t see government run insurance as perhaps the only option as private insurers can’t come to grips with the issue.
After Hurricane Andrew wiped out southern FL in 1992 Allstate paid up and left. I don’t know if they come back in any way. I’m guessing not.