The Hurricane Insurance Checklist Every South Florida Homeowner Needs

Hurricane Season Is Not the Time to Read Your Policy

Every year, the same thing happens in South Florida. A tropical system develops in the Atlantic, the news starts covering it nonstop, and suddenly my phone rings off the hook with homeowners asking what their insurance actually covers. By that point, it's often too late to make changes — most carriers stop writing or modifying policies once a named storm enters the Gulf or gets within a certain distance of Florida.

The time to review your hurricane coverage is now, well before the June 1 start of hurricane season. This checklist walks you through exactly what to look at, what questions to ask, and what gaps to fix before it matters.

Understand Your Hurricane Deductible

This is the single most misunderstood part of homeowners insurance in Florida. Your hurricane deductible is not the same as your regular deductible. It's typically a percentage of your dwelling coverage — usually 2%, 5%, or 10% — not a flat dollar amount.

Here's what that looks like in practice: if your home is insured for $400,000 and you have a 5% hurricane deductible, you're responsible for the first $20,000 of hurricane damage before insurance pays anything. That's a massive out-of-pocket number, and most homeowners don't realize it until they're filing a claim.

A 2% hurricane deductible on a $400K home = $8,000 out of pocket. A 5% deductible = $20,000. Know your number before storm season.

Review your declarations page (the summary sheet of your policy) and look for your hurricane or named-storm deductible. If it's higher than you're comfortable paying out of pocket, talk to your agent about lowering it. Yes, a lower deductible means a higher premium, but it's a trade-off worth understanding before you're in the middle of a crisis.

Confirm Your Dwelling Coverage Reflects Actual Replacement Cost

Your dwelling coverage limit should represent what it would cost to rebuild your home from the ground up at today's prices, not what you paid for the house, not what Zillow says it's worth, and not what you think it might cost. Construction costs in South Florida have increased significantly in recent years, and a lot of homeowners are sitting on policies with dwelling limits that were set years ago and never updated.

If your home would cost $450,000 to rebuild today and your policy only covers $350,000, you're underinsured by $100,000. That gap comes out of your pocket if your home is destroyed. Ask your agent to run an updated replacement cost estimate, and adjust your coverage accordingly.

Get a Wind Mitigation Inspection

If you haven't had a wind mitigation inspection done on your home, you are almost certainly overpaying on your homeowners insurance. Florida law requires insurers to offer discounts for homes with certain wind-resistant features: things like impact windows, hip roofs, secondary water resistance, and roof-to-wall connection type.

A wind mitigation inspection costs around $75–$150 and takes about 30 minutes. The savings can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year. If your home was built after 2002 under the Florida Building Code, you likely qualify for significant credits. Even older homes with updated features can benefit.

Check Your Flood Insurance: Separately

This is the part that catches a lot of people off guard: your homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage. Full stop. It doesn't matter how comprehensive your policy is. If water rises from the ground — whether from storm surge, heavy rain, or a canal overflow — that's flood damage, and it requires a separate flood insurance policy.

In South Florida, this isn't optional. Even if you're not in a high-risk flood zone, even if your mortgage company doesn't require it, the risk is real. Roughly 25% of all flood claims in Florida come from properties outside of high-risk zones. A private flood policy for a Zone X property can be surprisingly affordable, often under $500 per year — and it could save you from a six-figure loss.

If you already have flood insurance through the NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program), review your coverage limits. NFIP caps building coverage at $250,000 and contents at $100,000. If your home is worth more than that, you need either supplemental coverage or a private flood policy with higher limits.

Review Your Personal Property Coverage

Your homeowners policy includes personal property coverage (Coverage C), which protects your belongings — furniture, electronics, clothing, appliances, everything inside your home. The standard amount is typically 50–75% of your dwelling coverage, but that may not be enough depending on what you own.

More importantly, make sure your policy covers replacement cost rather than actual cash value. The difference is massive: replacement cost pays to replace your destroyed items with new equivalents, while actual cash value depreciates the item first. A five-year-old couch with an ACV payout might get you $200. Replacement cost would cover a new couch at $800.

Consider creating a home inventory (photos or video of each room, receipts for high-value items) and storing it in the cloud. If you ever need to file a claim, having documentation makes the process dramatically smoother.

Loss of Use Coverage

If a hurricane damages your home badly enough that you can't live in it, your loss of use coverage (Coverage D) pays for temporary living expenses: hotel, rental house, meals, and other costs above your normal expenses. The standard is usually 20% of your dwelling limit.

In a major hurricane, finding available temporary housing in South Florida can be extremely difficult and expensive. If your loss of use coverage is $60,000 and you're displaced for six months, that works out to $10,000/month, which may or may not cover actual costs depending on what's available. Review this number and consider increasing it if the standard amount feels thin.

Your Pre-Hurricane Checklist Summary

Here's the bottom line. Before June 1, every South Florida homeowner should confirm your hurricane deductible and make sure you can afford it out of pocket, verify your dwelling coverage reflects current replacement costs, get a wind mitigation inspection if you haven't already, confirm you have a separate flood insurance policy with adequate limits, review personal property coverage and make sure it's replacement cost (not ACV), check your loss of use coverage is enough for 6+ months of displacement, create and store a home inventory with photos and receipts, and know your carrier's claims phone number and process before you need it.

None of this takes more than a phone call to your agent and maybe an hour of your time. But the difference between being prepared and being caught off guard can be tens of thousands of dollars.