The Largest Homeowners Insurance Deductible That Clark Recommends

this is from Jay in Florida what is the maximum amount you would recommend for a homeowner's insurance deductible I wouldn't make a claim on anything less than ten thousand dollars today as I can afford the cost and I don't want to risk my rate increasing or being dropped altogether but just how high should I go 25k I'm fortunate and have quite a bit in reserve so I could handle the cost in case of emergency I'm trying to balance the risk and cost here it's unlikely I'll follow claim unless there's catastrophic damage Jay this is a dilemma facing so many Floridians especially the roughly is it one and a half percent of Floridians live in close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and so the risk to you with your homeowners insurance obviously in Florida use it and lose it Florida faces in a catastrophic storm State Legislature having to potentially bail out Florida residents only facing a catastrophe of a major hurricane the devastation if you look at the recent hurricane not only disrupting people's lives and loss of life but the property destruction in those Gulf Coast communities in Lee County unbelievable Lee County Southwest Florida and so having as a homeowner if you have the resources an extremely high deductible is smart you don't want to make small claims a lot of Florida homeowners insurance policies have two deductibles they have one for unnamed storm events and then second when a storm is named you face a much higher deductible what you can do is from your insurer you can get quotes for different levels of deductible I assume I'm making an assumption here Jay you have no mortgage if you have a mortgage your mortgage company will tell you what the maximum deductible is you're allowed to have before they do something called Force placed insurance which is unbelievably horrible but if you find that there's a break point where going higher doesn't really save you any money then stick it that is your deductible could be ten thousand twenty five thousand fifty thousand something like that because if you ever do have a catastrophic claim then at that point limiting the out of pocket is a good choice

Channel: Clark Howard: Save More, Spend Less

Views: 20,001

Keywords: clark howard, clark, money, financial literacy, finances, money podcast, podcast, financial podcast, consumer, consumer advocate

Id: 97rT86UtR48

Length: 2min 49sec (169 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023