One of the maddening things sometimes about being an “insurance insider” is that it is very easy to get frustrated over consumer and legislative complaints over the cost of providing coverage in catastrophe prone areas.
While I agree that the industry could have done a better job of being self-aware of the magnitude of risk it has faced, thereby reducing the need for part of the property insurance rate shocks of the past couple of years, the fact of the matter remains that folks need to remember that there is a cost associated with choosing to live in harm’s way.
Judging by this article in the Tennessean, a few folks have been realizing that inland are places where it makes more economic sense to live:
Davis is one of more than 25,000 people who have moved from Florida to Nashville and surrounding counties since 1989, according to a state database of drivers’ licenses. The former Florida residents make up almost 10 percent of the area’s drivers who have relocated from out of state.
“It was getting impossible to get insurance on your home,” Davis said. “We got out just in time.”
The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance prompted many of those recent relocations from the Sunshine State, real estate experts said.
The article also mentions that it’s not just the cost of insurance that is driving folks to less-expensive locales, like Middle Tennessee. Housing prices in Florida have encouraged a few Floridian homeowners to cash in and move to where real estate prices are less astronomical, realizing a tidy profit in the process.