(WSVN) – The cost of insuring her home has skyrocketed to five times her normal rate, meaning she can’t afford to insure her home. Unfortunately, she’s not alone, which is why she called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
Elisa had COVID, badly, and was lying in a hospital bed.
Elisa Betancourt: “They said, you know, ‘She’s gone. She’s gone, bring the machine,” so I listen to them, and I talk to myself, and I say, “God, please don’t let me die.
Elisa fired back thinking of her daughter, about to turn 15.
Elisa Betancourt: “So having my daughter turn 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 this same determination does not have the same effect on his confidence,
Elisa Betancourt: “I don’t know what the problem is, and that’s the problem.”
It all started in September, when she received the bill to renew the home and storm insurance for her home.
Elisa Betancourt: “Insurance has gone from $4,800 per year to $26,400. Without explanation, without reason.
Twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars for the roofing of a nice house in the middle of a neighborhood in Hialeah.
Elisa Betancourt: “I thought it was a mistake. I said, ‘It must 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, windows and roof impact resistant.
Elisa Betancourt: “And when the inspector came to do the perfection of the roof, he said it was one of the best roofs he had ever seen.”
Elisa contacted several other insurance companies.
He wanted her to pay $50,000. This one was $36,000.
Citizens were the cheapest, $14,000, which is too much for Elisa to pay as well.
Elisa Betancourt: “What else can I do? There is nothing else we can do.
And with the overpriced insurance, Elisa did nothing.
Elisa Betancourt: “For now, I don’t have insurance. My house doesn’t have insurance right now.
If the mortgage company forcibly places insurance, in other words chooses a company with these exorbitant prices to insure the house, Elisa will have to sell.
Elisa Betancourt: “It’s like I’m sitting on a time bomb, but if I sell it, who’s going to buy it and want to pay $26,000?
Elisa wanted to leave her house to her children. Now insurance costs could force them all out.
Elisa Betancourt: “And it breaks my heart, because there are 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’ve never seen prices skyrocket so high on a house. It makes no sense, but there is nothing in the law preventing it. Lawmakers must do something now to protect homeowners or workers will lose their homes. »
I contacted everyone from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to the company that once insured Elisa. No help either.
An insurance adjuster reviewed Elisa’s paperwork and couldn’t find a reason why her rates were skyrocketing.
Elisa Betancourt: “I think that’s the tip of the iceberg.”
Today it’s Elisa, tomorrow it might be you.
Elisa Betancourt: “And I want the government to take this into consideration and protect the owners for future generations, because if we don’t do it now, what will happen in the future?”
Well, this week the Florida Legislature meets to try to find a way to slow soaring insurance rates.
Contact your legislator’s office, call the governor’s office. To find out who your senator and state representative is, click here.
Remind them, don’t just help insurance companies, help homeowners like you.
A problem takes you by storm? Want to make sure you get help? Contact us. See if we can derive it from your life for free.
With this Help Me Howard, I’m Patrick Fraser, 7News.
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