Florida Mobile Home Insurance Information

Stop mobile home mitigation boondoggle

A costly state program aimed at shoring up mobile homes to better withstand hurricanes has all the trappings of a boondoggle: insider dealing, little accountability and disproportionately high funding. Florida's Legislature, including a key Tampa Bay lawmaker, have been all too willing to look the other way. But now that Windstorm Mitigation Inc. has received another extraordinarily lucrative multiyear contract financed through the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, Gov. Rick Scott and fellow Cat Fund trustees should reconsider whether the program is the best use of public money.

As the St. Petersburg Times ' Kris Hundley reported last Sunday, only one vendor with an inside track has ever been hired for the state's mobile home mitigation program, which receives $2.8 million of the $10 million the Cat Fund spends annually in order to qualify for tax-exempt status. Ken Cashin, a longtime manufactured home industry lobbyist, was part of the 1999 state committee assigned to design the mobile home program. He wrote a technical report outlining how the retrofitting program should operate, and several of those recommendations became part of the bid. Two months later, he resigned from the committee to form Windstorm Mitigation and won the bid to install anchors — at no cost to the homeowner — on homes manufactured after tougher federal building standards took effect in 1976. (Homes built to earlier standards aren't believed to have the structural integrity to benefit from the anchors.)

But 11 years later, Hundley found a program that appears to be rife with waste even as it has spent $33 million from the state Cat Fund. Inspectors told Hundley they routinely find mobile homes that had been part of the program but have far too few anchors installed to be of any use or should never have qualified because of their age. And professional inspectors conducting a random survey of eight mobile homes that took part in the program in Pinellas and Polk counties found only one with enough anchors to actually qualify as meeting the current safety codes. At a Clearwater park, none of four mobile homes that were in the program had sufficient anchors. These are not the characteristics of an efficient, cost-effective program.

How to Get Cheap Mobile Home Insurance in Florida

Home Contents Insurance

Mobile Home Insurance

Standard mobile home insurance includes the following coverages:

Structure coverage – This pays to replace or repair your mobile home, and other structures like a detached garage, when they’ve been damaged or destroyed by fire, plumbing leaks, vandalism, or storms. Standard policies do not cover damage caused by floods, so you’ll need to purchase extra insurance if you want flood coverage.

Personal property coverage – This pays to replace your personal property – electronics, clothing, furniture, bicycles, sports equipment, tools, etc. – when they’ve been damaged or destroyed by fire, plumbing leaks, vandalism, or storms. Standard policies limit the amount of coverage for expensive items like jewelry, furs, collections, and antiques, so you’ll need to get additional insurance for these.

Additional living expense coverage – This pays your additional living expenses when your mobile home is uninhabitable and is being repaired. This coverage pays your hotels bills, restaurant bills, and other additional expenses.

Libility coverage – This pays for medical claims, property damage expenses, and legal fees if you or your family injure another person or damage their property.

Trip collision coverage – This pays to repair or replace your mobile home when it’s been damaged when you move it to a new location.

Emergency removal coverage – This pays to move your mobile home when it’s being threatened by an approaching fire, hurricane, or other perils.

Loss assessment coverage – This pays your share of losses assessed by your association.

How to Get Cheap Florida Mobile Home Insurance

The cost for mobile home insurance can vary by hundreds of dollars from one company to another, so the first thing you should do is get quotes from different companies see which company has the cheapest rate. The best place to do this is at an insurance comparison website where you can get multiple quotes by filling out a simple questionnaire with information about your mobile home and the amount of insurance you want.

Home

Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton, the daughter of John Ames's closest friend, is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom ...

Florida

Introduces the geography, history, environment, economy, and culture of the Sunshine State.

Florida

Provides an overview of the state of Florida, covering its history, geography, economy, people, and points of interest.

Florida: A Guide to the Southern-Most State

Throughout more than four centuries, from Ponce de Leon in his caravels to the latest Pennsylvanian in his Buick, Florida has been invaded by seekers of ...

Florida

Placed in the care of relatives at a young age, Alice Fivey struggles to adapt within numerous homes and eventually finds refuge in books, a childhood that ...