TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Preparing for another hurricane season means it's time to prepare to protect your family's largest single asset: your home.
While memories of two major hurricanes battering the Tampa Bay area are still fresh in our minds, now is the time to make sure your house is ready for another potential storm, and that means making sure you have the right insurance.
Matt Weidner, an attorney who represents homeowners when they have to fight their insurance company in court, said homeowners have learned hard lessons about homeowners insurance after two hurricanes hit Tampa Bay in just 13 days last year.
"Call your insurance agent right now,” he said. "Make sure they email you a copy of that policy, not just your home but your cars as well. That should be part of what we have in our digital file so that when the storm comes, and look, we should be speaking in the language that another storm is coming. You need to have those policies on hand and know who's your agent."
Now is the time to take photos and videos of your home and covered valuables. If you experience damage, document that as well, so you have proof for your agent. Make sure you have two insurance policies. One policy should be for wind damage and water damage caused by wind damage, and another separate flood policy should cover rising water.
"That's a really important issue that we learned the last event," Weidner said. "We hadn't really experienced flooding previously and maybe people canceled policies, but the moment water touches the house, your wind storm isn't going to cover that."
Even when you think you've done everything right, things can go wrong. Jaime Giangrande-Holcom and her husband had flood insurance but were told by their insurance adjuster that their living room was actually a basement because of a 3-and-1/2-inch step down.
"It's ridiculous,” she said. “It's ridiculous to even come out and say the word basement in the state of Florida is comical. I grew up in New York, and I know what a basement looks like. I lived in basements. This is not a basement."
Our story pointed out her home entrance goes up 4 1/2 inches before the step down and adjusters changed their minds. But this shed light on thousands of homes that could have rooms considered basements and not covered Winder says he has a similar case right now and he encourages homeowners to make sure they understand their policies and try to finish repairs from last year's storms before the next storm hits.
"If you look around this community, we still haven't recovered from the last storm, so when the storm comes again, and you've got houses that aren't repaired yet, it's going to be a real problem,” he said.
Weidner said many of the crisis stories that come to him deal with unpermitted work, such as work on a roof or sunroom that was done without a permit. He said you need to check permits now and fix those problems before you're dealing with storm damage.
