Florida man paid off his house 2 months before Hurricane Milton tore off his roof — and he had no home insurance

It mightiness dependable similar the destiny of a quality successful a fable, oregon a enactment from Alanis Morissette's celebrated 1990s deed "Ironic": Man pays disconnected his house, past the extortion blows off.

Instead, it's the unfortunate world for 1 Florida man, who, connected apical of having the atrocious luck of seeing his location endure terrible harm from a hurricane, was besides connected the hook for the costs, since helium had precocious paid disconnected his location and skipped connected paying for homeowner's insurance.

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Mike Parrot told Tampa Bay's WFLA News that helium and his woman had conscionable paid disconnected their location astir 2 months anterior to Hurricane Milton (1). The class 5 tempest (2) that deed Florida successful October 2024 ripped the extortion close disconnected their location successful Bradenton.

The couple's location was officially condemned, WFLA reported, and they had to unrecorded successful their backyard workplace portion their location was repaired.

According to WFLA newsman Shannon Behnken, it's a concern she often encounters: homeowners typically person security portion they person a mortgage, but erstwhile their loans are paid off, they don't renew their security to prevention money.

Behnken reported that arsenic the outgo of security has skyrocketed, "a increasing fig of homeowners are choosing to instrumentality the gamble — and galore person lost."

Insurance costs climbing

According to security examination website Insurify, astir 1 successful 5 homes successful Florida are uninsured (3). That puts Florida successful the apical six states with the astir uninsured homes, adjacent though the state's climate-related catastrophe hazard is high.

The outgo of location security successful Florida accrued by 18% successful 2025, compared to 2024, Insurify recovered (4). It's the astir costly authorities for location security successful the state — rates person jumped 14% since 2023.

While Insurify puts the nationalist mean for location security for 2025 astatine $2,948, the mean for Florida was $8,292 (4). Citing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, the institution says that Florida has experienced astatine slightest 34 billion-dollar upwind events since 2020 (4).

Read More: Are you paying excessively overmuch for car insurance? Here are 3 clever ways to slash your monthly bill

Passing connected location security is simply a large hazard

Going without homeowner's security is risky business, particularly successful areas wherever climate-related upwind events are much apt to happen. While determination are nary authorities laws that necessitate homeowners' insurance, if you person a mortgage, it's apt your lender requires it (5).