Florida Homeowner Insurance Discounts Available

Insurance companies offer dozens of discounts to homeowners to help lower their premium and encourage homeowners to upgrade their homes to make it more resistant to the elements. The better your home handles a storm, the less likely you are to make a claim, which is music to insurers ears. 

While many discounts are offered across the nation, some may be a bit more localized. As an example, in Florida, insurance companies must offer a discount known as Wind Mitigation Credits for homeowners who make some modifications to their home to prevent wind damage. 

Let’s have a quick look at some of the discounts available to homeowners in both Florida and across the country:

Wind Mitigation Credits

The State of Florida is sort of unique with this one, they require insurance companies operating in the state to offer this discount. However, you must have a certified inspection of your home done to qualify for this discount. This discount is called a Wind Mitigation Credit.

The inspector will look at a variety of specific factors to determine how resilient your home is to windstorms.  They look at your roof as well as doors and windows. In most cases, they will take a close look at these features of your home:

• Roof Shape
• Roof Bracing of gable
• Roof deck attachment
• Roof covering – shingle type
• Roof-to-wall connections
• Secondary water resistance
• Doors
• Protection of home openings which includes windows and any other openings

When your home was built may determine whether you qualify for savings without making any changes. All homes that were built after 2002 were constructed to safety codes that will result in a savings. However, if your home was built before then, you could still qualify for discounts, especially if your roof has recently been replaced. 

If you don’t immediately qualify for a discount you can make some changes to your home that should up your chances of getting a discount. Most of these changes are not too expensive and will help your home survive a severe wind event:

• Securing your roof with hurricane clips or wraps
• Replacing windows, doors and other openings with wind impact glass

• Adding hurricane shutters to protect your windows
• Replacing garage doors with hurricane resistant garage doors
• Replacing your roof with a wind resistant roofing material

In order to qualify for a wind mitigation credit, you must have an inspection done that typically costs $75. In the majority of cases, the inspection should pay for itself in the first year, but credits can go even higher, up to the maximum of 88% off of your hurricane/wind premium.

Home Safety

This one should lower your premium regardless of whether you are located in Florida or not. Adding a monitored burglar alarm and smoke detectors should result in a discount. If you want to up this discount even further, consider putting in home sensors that detect water or natural gas leaks. 

The discount amount will vary by insurance company but can be significant. If you want to push the savings to the limit, considering installing a sprinkler system which will help put out a fire if one breaks out in your home. This can be a costly upgrade but will result in significant savings. 

Gated Community

Many communities (especially retirement ones) in Florida are gated and this should result in a discount on your homeowners insurance. This is not just a Florida discount though, if you live in a gated community in any state you should ask for a discount. A monitored gate helps reduce crime which helps reduce claims, so insurers offer a discount to homeowners in these communities. While the discount will probably not be huge, they all add up.

Strong Insurance Score

This is a discount that everyone can take advantage of, provided they keep their credit score in good standing. Insurance companies have embraced the use of credit-based insurance scores which use certain elements of your credit history to predict how likely you are to make a claim. 

Research has shown that there is a correlation between certain credit characteristics and insurance claims. According to FICO, one of the major producers of credit-based insurance scores, 85 percent of homeowner insurance companies use a credit-based insurance score to determine your premium.

The practice is currently outlawed in these states: Massachusetts, Hawaii, and California.

This is breakdown of what insurers consider from your credit report:

• Payment 
• Outstanding Debt
• Credit History Length
• Pursuit of New Credit 
• Credit Mix 

If your credit score is less than stellar, you should see a drop in your premium if you can improve it. Pay your bills on time, close accounts you no longer use and request a copy of your credit report to review if for errors. If you find any errors, contact the credit reporting agency to get it corrected as soon as possible. 

Bundling

This is an old favorite and available to just about anyone regardless of where they live. If you purchase your home and auto insurance (and any other insurance coverages, you have) from the same insurance company you should see a significant discount. 

The best advice is to have your agent do a discount review to make sure you are receiving all available discounts on your policy and alert you to discounts you may be eligible for if you make a few changes to your home. 

Get new Florida home insurance quotes today and let us help you review rates, coverages and discounts all in one place.