Insurance Doubled in FL/CA: What Your Pro Forma Must Show Now

TL;DR

✦ Average Florida property insurance: $1,800 in 2018 → $4,200 in 2024. ✦ California fire-zone insurance: $1,400 → $3,800-$5,200. ✦ Listings reflect the seller's grandfathered policy. Yours will be priced on today's risk model. ✦ The fix: get a binding insurance quote before you offer. Not after.

Why this single line broke so many deals

Insurance was a footnote in 2018. A $150/month line item, easy to under-budget, easy to ignore. By 2024, in Florida and California it had become a $350-$450/month line item — sometimes the second-largest expense after debt service.

Investors who used the listing's insurance line (the seller's policy) under-modeled their real expense by $200-$350/month. On a $350K SFR, that's the difference between $400/mo cashflow and $0/mo cashflow.

Multiply across a portfolio: 4 doors with $250/mo of under-modeled insurance = $1,000/mo in invisible drag.

The 2026 numbers, by region

Florida

• Coastal (Miami, Tampa, Naples): $4,800-$8,500/year for SFR, $7,500-$15,000 for 2-4 unit. Hurricane wind/named storm coverage drives the cost.
• Inland (Orlando, Gainesville, Tallahassee): $2,400-$4,800/year. Less wind risk, but still elevated vs. national average.
• State average: $4,200/year for SFR (2024 data, NAIC).

Why: combined effect of Hurricane Ian (2022, $112B insured losses), Idalia (2023), and a wave of insurer exits (Citizens Property Insurance now insurer-of-last-resort for ~1.4M policies).

California

• Wildfire urban interface (WUI) zones: $4,200-$7,800/year. Many private insurers won't write at all — FAIR Plan + wrap policies common.
• Coastal non-WUI (LA, SF): $1,800-$3,400/year.
• Inland non-WUI: $1,200-$2,000/year.
• State average WUI: $3,800/year (2024 data).

Why: 2017-2023 wildfire seasons. State Farm and Allstate stopped writing new HO policies in CA in 2023.

Other elevated regions

• Texas: Coastal wind $2,800-$5,200; inland $1,400-$2,800.
• Louisiana: $3,400-$6,200 (similar dynamics to FL).
• Oklahoma/Kansas tornado alley: $1,800-$3,400.

How sellers' policies mislead

The listing's insurance line is the seller's policy. If they bought in 2017 and grandfathered into a policy that no longer exists (carrier exited, terms tightened), their listed expense is artificially low.

Three things change at sale:

1. New policy quote is priced on current risk model — sometimes 2-3× the seller's renewal.
2. Coverage requirements for your lender may exceed what the seller carried. Lenders increasingly require named-storm endorsements, replacement-cost coverage (not ACV), and higher liability limits.
3. Roof age and condition rules tightened in 2023-2024. A 15+ year roof can fail to insure at all in some FL submarkets.

The binding-quote rule

Before you offer, get a binding insurance quote. Not an "estimate." A binding quote — meaning the insurer commits to that price for that property at that coverage.

Two ways to get it:

1. Local broker who works with multiple carriers. They run the address and email you a quote in 2-4 hours.
2. Direct portal (Lemonade, Hippo, Kin in some markets). Instant quote, but coverage often less than lender-required.

Always get the lender-spec quote — meaning the policy that meets your lender's coverage requirements. The cheapest policy isn't actionable if your loan won't accept it.

Worked example: Tampa duplex, before and after

Listed: $385K, $5,800/mo gross rent, "$210/mo insurance" per OM.

Hobbyist underwriting (used the listing line):

• NOI: $5,800 × 12 − ($1,820 expenses × 12) = $47,760
• Cashflow after debt: $880/mo positive
• Cap rate: 12.4%
• Looks like a solid deal.

Operator underwriting (binding quote pulled):

• Binding quote: $695/mo (FL coastal, named storm, replacement cost, lender-spec)
• Real expenses: $2,305/mo
• NOI: $41,940
• Cashflow after debt: $390/mo positive
• Cap rate: 10.9%
• Still a deal — but $490/mo less cashflow than modeled.

The hobbyist offered $385K. The operator counter-offered $345K (the price that pulls cashflow back to the original $880/mo at the real insurance line). The seller accepted $358K, knowing other buyers would discover the same gap.

The roof problem

In FL, GA, LA, TX coastal, your binding quote depends heavily on roof age. Most carriers won't write a property with:

• Roof > 20 years old (some won't write > 15)
• Significant granule loss visible
• 3-tab shingles instead of architectural
• No hurricane straps (FL only)

If you're buying with the intent to insure-and-rent, the roof's age is a deal-killer or a forced rehab line item ($9K-$18K).

Run this in Vricko

Vricko's Underwriter pulls insurance benchmark data by zip and triggers a binding-quote workflow before you offer. The model auto-adjusts when the quote comes back higher than the listing line.

Try Vricko →

The portfolio-level take

If you own in FL or CA, recheck every property's insurance at every renewal. The market resets every 12 months and your model needs to reset with it. A 2022 underwriting at $250/mo insurance could be $500/mo in 2026 — with no other variable changing.

This is the line item with the most movement and the least investor attention. Operators put it on a quarterly review.

Keep reading

• The 8 Numbers Every Deal Must Pass
• Tax Reset at Sale: The Line Item That Breaks 30% of Pro Formas
• Why Your 'Cash-on-Cash' Calculation Is Lying to You

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