In Florida, there is another house insurance firm going out of business; this time, the decision specifically affects prefabricated homeowners.
According to Doug Nellans of the Insurance Center of Fort Myers, “this is an unfortunate step back in an already fragile and slow insurance market.”
It indicates that Florida’s insurance problem is still very much present. Southwest Florida prefabricated home owners who received cancellation notices from American Mobile Insurance Exchange now have even fewer options. Following the destruction of hundreds of mobile homes by Hurricane Ian, many of the parks in the area are still recovering.
Chad Hartkopp is employed by Sylvester Companies, a contractor that has assisted numerous mobile home owners in rebuilding their homes.
“A lot of people just want to get their houses fixed. We have to start it even before the insurance will start to help them,” Hartkopp stated.
He relocated to Southwest Florida just before Ian’s attack, and he hasn’t stopped working since. He admitted that one of the reasons he has personally avoided purchasing a home is the expense of house insurance.
According to him, a large number of his clients lack insurance because they are unable to pay for it or are unable to locate an insurer.
One of those without insurance was a homeowner and retiree he had been working for on Thursday, just off McGregor Boulevard, but he was too distraught to discuss it.
“A lot of our manufactured homeowner clients are, in fact, retirees and on fixed incomes. This entire situation is incredibly difficult for them,” Nellans stated.
After St. Petersburg-based American Mobile sent out letters canceling insurance policies, things only got harder.
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“The loss of even one of these companies is adding tremendous amount of pain to an already unpleasant situation,” Nellans stated.
Nellans acknowledged that a lot of manufactured house owners are taking a chance and not buying anything.
“We’ve had plenty of homeowners who have indicated this has gotten to be too much too fast and I have no choice but to go without insurance, and that is a very difficult position to be in,” Nellans stated.
Since rates are rising for almost everyone, it is driving a large number of those homeowners into the state-run Citizens Insurance firm and keeping newcomers like Hartkopp out of the real estate market.
Homeowners feel that more needs to be done to assist by elected officials at the state and federal levels.
