Vermont Emergency Approves $14M for Flood-Damaged Manufactured/Mobile Homes – Florida’s Mobile Home Insurance Market Seems to Have ‘Fallen Apart’
Source: WCAX 3 News Team – Money is on the way to replace manufactured/mobile homes and help businesses destroyed by flooding.
Governor Phil Scott said Vermont’s Emergency Board approved $7 million in state money for the Business Emergency Gap Assistance Program to provide help to businesses, farms and nonprofits hit by flooding this year.
Another $7 million will be used to buy mobile homes/manufactured homes for people who lost them in the flooding last summer.
Officials say around 60 mobile/manufactured homes were destroyed in 2023, eliminating two mobile home communities. The funding is expected to provide upwards of 30 homes by the end of the year.
The governor says the money could add 30 manufactured/mobile homes this year and as many as 100 next year.
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Source: Insurance Journal (excerpts) – With American Mobile Out, Florida’s Mobile Home Insurance Market Seems to Have ‘Fallen Apart’
Reinsurance in Florida’s long stressed property insurance market was supposed to have stabilized this year – with only moderate rate increases and more availability.
But those calmer waters apparently have not reached the mobile home market, and Florida insurance agents are now reporting that higher reinsurance costs have forced at least one carrier to cancel coverage for mobile homes and manufactured homes. Agents said they can find very little available coverage, especially for “mobile homes that are more than two years old.” (Editor’s note) . There have been zero mobile homes built since 1976!!.
“One of our niches has been manufactured homes and mobile homes. But now the market has absolutely fallen apart in Florida.” said John Gardner, of Fort Myers, principal at Lee County Insurance agency.
The trouble began in March, when St. Petersburg-based American Mobile Insurance Exchange sent a notice to Florida agents and insureds, notifying them that more than 1,100 policies would be canceled in just 45 days.
“These cancellations have been issued as part of AMIE’s plan to withdraw from the mobile homeowners market in Florida prior to the beginning of the 2024 hurricane season,” the bulletin reads. “This plan to withdraw is due to deterioration of AMIE”s financial condition.
Agents are also responsible for the return of any unearned agent commissions associated with the affected policies.
Florida law requires most cancellations to give a 120-day notice. But American Mobile’s notice said that Florida Statute 627.4133(2)(b)6 allows a shorter period, if regulators approve, for a few reasons including hurricane risk and a lack of adequate reinsurance.
