[petsetc]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have a simple and straight forward question regarding sink hole insurance. I understand the following already:

Catastrophic Ground Cover Collapse (CGCC) is covered by all FL policies subject to
4 pre-determined factors including the house is deemed uninhabitable.

Sink Hole Insurance covers “subsidence” and may come into play if the house does not
meet the factors for CGCC and there is a typical deductible of 10% of the policy

Both apply only to the dwelling, not to the yard, the driveway, etc.


My question is whether anyone knows of an actual successful claim(s) under a sink hole insurance rider.

I have for 10 years had sink hole coverage but have been told by two independent agents that since my roof is 11 years old (over 10 yrs) none of their companies will write my sink hole coverage. ( I did ask what my roof had to do with sink holes and got … in response). I am currently with Kin who wants $2800 to renew me (with sink hole rider) or I can go elsewhere for $1600 without sink hole coverage. I am in Village of Dunedin
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Again - My question is whether anyone knows of an actual successful claim(s) under a sink hole insurance rider.

I am on a short timeline, so your input is greatly appreciated.

[jrref]

There are many opinions on this topic but at the end of the day, unless you are living in an area where there has been a lot of sinkhole activity actually affecting homes, it's a waste of money.

Why?
1) Most of the time if you have sinkhole activity under your home, eventhough the home is still standing, it will probably be considered catastrophic. There was a case like this last year where there was a sinkhole on a golf course that caused a nearby home to be declared unhabitable eventhough the home looked perfectly fine.
2) We have had sinkholes in the roadways or by a curb in the road and most of these were caused by broken water or sewer pipes although they were called sinkholes.
3) Although a sinkhole can happen, it's a very low possibility, again unles you live in an area with a lot of occurances.
4) Many people thought sinkhole insurance would cover a hole in their lawn, driveway, backyard or on the side of the house but that's not the case. It only covers non-catastrophic collapse or settling of the dwelling or living area of your home.

I'm sure other's will chime in but this is one way of looking at it.

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by petsetc

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Again - My question is whether anyone knows of an actual successful claim(s) under a sink hole insurance rider.

I am on a short timeline, so your input is greatly appreciated.

Thousands of Sink Hole claims were paid in Florida, prior to 2020. I owned a home in Trinity for 10 years and I know at least 8 people on my street, who were paid by their insurance company for remediation of sink hole problems.

The previous problem with "sink holes", as regards insurance, was a definition that was adopted back in the hey days of sink hole claims. Most any "settling" of the earth was considered a sink hole, when it fact, there could have been many more causes of the settling.

Look up Pasco County & sink holes through Google. Pasco County was the epicenter of Sink Hole claims back in the day. I've been involved in numerous properties in Pasco with actual sink holes, claimed sink holes and just plain "settling". Anyone who's been in the insurance business in Pasco County, can give you an earful on the bad old days, when Insurance companies were paying out millions.

This is probably not the exact information you wanted, but I and many others, could write a book on the sink hole issue in Florida, specifically in Pasco County.

Here's some reasonably good information from the world famous Morgan & Morgan: Florida Sinkhole Safety: What to Know Before Moving to The Villages | 5/27/2016.

[MarshBendLover]

I didn't get it on mine. Lots of threads on here about this topic over the years. Someone recently posted a map of the village sinkholes.