[Ken Coury]

Bailey, thanks for posting this — and Stella and George, thank you both. Between the Save Our Homes breakdown, the senior exemption and AGI point, and the loss-mitigation steps, the tax and servicer sides are covered better than I could cover them.

I’m an insurance agent, so let me add the one piece I can speak to from inside the policy: how an $800 premium becomes $2,500 at the first renewal on new construction.

That first $800 was probably never a real market rate for the finished home. Initial policies on new construction are often bound from the builder’s estimated figures, sometimes with a new-home credit that phases out after the first term. At renewal, the carrier re-prices the actual completed home — finished replacement cost, roof and construction details, and current Florida rate filings. The homeowner experiences it as a 3x increase; from the carrier’s side, it’s the first honest price. Which is exactly why Stella’s pre-closing stress test idea matters — this shock was predictable at origination, just not disclosed in those terms.

Two practical warnings from the agent side, because timing matters for this couple:

1. Don’t let the policy lapse while shopping. If coverage lapses, the servicer force-places insurance — it typically costs more, protects the lender’s interest far more than the family’s, and makes a bad escrow situation worse.

2. Sequence any switch carefully. Bind the new policy before canceling the old one, and tell the servicer a change is coming, so the escrow re-analysis doesn’t stack the old shortage and the new premium into the same few payments.

George’s shopping list (FMAP, the state’s CHOICES tool, Citizens) is the right starting point — an independent agent can run all of it in one pass and verify the wind mitigation credits are actually on the policy, which is the most commonly missed discount I see in Florida.

Cases like this are why the estimate conversation at closing matters so much for fixed-income buyers. Appreciate this group for taking it seriously.

— Ken Coury, Coury Insurance Group