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HIGH COST OF INSURANCE?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
October 6, 2017
Even if you didn’t suffer any damages to your property from the
recent hurricane, mark my words: You’ll pay for it – latest when
your insurance premiums will go up significantly!
Every time there is a hurricane hitting Florida – or parts of it
– we see mainly the same kind of problems: Flooding, damage to
homes hit by trees and lightly built homes with wind damage.
Here is my take on it: We will see this problem as long as the
State of Florida still allows new buildings to be built in zones
where flooding is unavoidable, allowing lightly-built homes to
be erected and have tree-huggers call the shots on not allowing
homeowners to remove dangerous trees to be properly pruned or
removed.
When you watch the pictures after the hurricane, you’ll see more
or less the same problem areas: Flooded areas, now including new
homes which didn’t exist the last time that area was flooded.
Our building department still allows new homes – and condominium
buildings -- to be built in streets that will flood every time
there is a storm – or even just very heavy rain.
You’ll see houses damaged – especially here in Central Florida –
by big old oak trees that finally succumbed to all kinds of
tree-diseases and bugs! But the “tree experts” from
cities and counties will fight you all the way, if you, as a
property owner, ask for permission to remove a tree endangering
your home. And some cities and counties have made it an extra
source of income burdening homeowners with high costs of tree
removal permits. Common sense: non existing!
And as much as I can understand that there are families who
can’t afford to own a home built like a bunker of the Atlantic
Wall, it makes little sense to me when lightly-built homes are
erected, over and over again, with the knowledge that the next
storm will flatten it again.
I am not against the idea of every family having the right to
own their own home, but I surely can’t understand why that has
to happen at the expense of all the neighbors whose property
insurance will go up every times these homes get flooded and/or
destroyed every time we have a hurricane here in Florida.
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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