(WSVN) - The cost to insure her home has skyrocketed to five times her regular rate, meaning she cannot afford to insure her home. Sadly, she is not alone, and it’s why she called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
Elisa had COVID, badly, and was lying in a hospital bed.
Elisa Betancourt: “They were saying, you know, ‘She’s gone. She’s gone, bring the machine,’ so I’m listening to them, and I’m talking to myself, and I say, ‘God, please don’t let me die.'”
Elisa fought back by thinking of her daughter, about to turn 15.
Elisa Betancourt: “So having my daughter’s 15 was a dream, so I said, ‘Please don’t leave me. Don’t let me die. Let me see her.'”
Elisa’s determination whipped COVID.
Elisa Betancourt: “I’m a fighter, I guess.”
But that same determination is not having the same effect on her insurance,
Elisa Betancourt: “I don’t know what the problem is, and that’s the problem.”
It began in September, when she got the bill to renew the home and windstorm coverage for her house.
Elisa Betancourt: “The insurance went from $4,800 a year to $26,400. Without explanation, without a reason why.”
Twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars for coverage of a nice house in the middle of a Hialeah neighborhood.
Elisa Betancourt: “I thought that it was a mistake. I said, ‘This has to be a mistake.'”
Elisa and her husband hired an inspector to do a mitigation report to show their house was structurally sound, which they knew, because in 2005, they completely remodeled the place: new wiring, plumbing, impact resistant windows and roof.
Elisa Betancourt: “And when the inspector came to do the roofing perfection, he says it was one of the best roofs that he had ever seen.'”
Elisa contacted several other insurance companies.
This one wanted to charge her $50,000. This one was $36,000.
Citizens was the least expensive, $14,000, which is too much for Elisa to pay as well.
Elisa Betancourt: “What else can I do? There is nothing else that we can do.”
And with the insurance too costly, Elisa did nothing.
Elisa Betancourt: “Right now I don’t have insurance. My house has no insurance right now.”
If the mortgage company force places insurance, in other words picks a company with those sky-high prices to insure the home, Elisa will have to sell.
Elisa Betancourt: “It’s like I’m sitting on a time bomb, but then if I sell it, who’s going to buy it and want to pay $26,000?”
Elisa wanted to leave her home to her children. Now, insurance costs might force them all to leave.
Elisa Betancourt: “And it breaks my heart, because there’s a lot of memories here of, you know, my kids growing up.”
Well, Howard, legally, can insurance companies double, triple, quadruple your rates?
Howard Finkelstein, 7News legal expert: “We have never seen rates soar this much on a house. It makes no sense, but there is nothing in the law that prevents it. The legislature has to do something now to protect homeowners, or working people will lose their homes.”
I contacted everyone from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to the company that once insured Elisa. Neither were any help.
An insurance expert looked at Elisa’s paperwork and did not find a reason for her rates to soar so dramatically.
Elisa Betancourt: “I think this is the tip of the iceberg.”
Today it’s Elisa, tomorrow it might be you.
Elisa Betancourt: “And I want to see the government taking this into consideration and protect the homeowners for future generations, because if we don’t do it now, what’s going to happen in the future?”
Well, this week, the Florida Legislature is meeting to try to find a way to slow soaring insurance rates..
Contact your legislators’ office, call the governor’s office. To find out who your state senator and representative is, click here.
Remind them, don’t just help the insurance companies, help the homeowners like yourself as well.
A problem taking you by storm? Want to insure you get help? Contact us. See if we can deduct it from your life for free.
With this Help Me Howard, I’m Patrick Fraser, 7News.
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Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
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