Orlando Insurance

Insurance in Orlando, Florida

We write in Orlando. Our office is in Riverview, but the license is statewide and the carrier appointments, the panel we shop and the person who answers the phone are the same wherever in Florida you sit. Central Florida clients reach us the way most of our clients do, by referral.

Orlando is also a market people misread. It is 60 miles from the coast, so homeowners assume the hurricane conversation does not apply to them. Hurricane Ian proved otherwise, and the damage was not wind.

The Orlando risk is fresh water, not surge

Inland Central Florida floods from rainfall, lake and river rise, and drainage that runs out of capacity, not from storm surge. That flooding arrives days after the wind has stopped, in neighborhoods that are nowhere near a coast and frequently nowhere near a mapped high-risk flood zone. Homes that had never taken water took several feet of it.

This matters because of how flood insurance is sold. Lenders require it in high-risk zones, so people in those zones have it. Nobody requires it anywhere else, so almost nobody outside those zones buys it — and your homeowners policy does not cover rising water no matter which zone you are in. Orange County itself notes that more than 25 percent of flood insurance claims come from structures outside the 100-year floodplain.

Orange County earns you a 25 percent flood discount

Here is something most Orlando homeowners have never been told. Orange County participates in FEMA’s Community Rating System, a voluntary program that rewards communities for floodplain management that exceeds the minimum standard. The county holds a Class 5 rating, and that rating produces a 25 percent discount on National Flood Insurance Program premiums for county residents.

FEMA’s own class table puts a Class 5 community at a 25 percent premium reduction, and describes the discount as applying to policies in the community’s high-risk flood areas. Whether your specific address gets the full 25 percent depends on your zone, so ask rather than assume — but the point stands either way. If you decided years ago that flood insurance in Orlando was not worth the money, you priced it without the discount. Let us run the real number.

Short-term rentals will void more coverage than people expect

Central Florida has an enormous stock of homes that are rented to visitors part of the year, and a homeowners policy is a personal lines contract. Renting the property out, particularly on a short-term basis, is a business use that many carriers exclude, restrict or treat as grounds for nonrenewal — and the discovery usually happens during a claim investigation rather than at renewal. If your Orlando property hosts guests, even occasionally, it needs to be written on a form that knows that. We can do that. What we cannot do is fix it after the loss.

What we write here

Home, flood, auto, condo, renters, umbrella, business and classic vehicle coverage through Hagerty. Same independent brokerage, same panel of A rated carriers, same person answering the phone. Call (813) 499-9347.